Inspired by his favorite novel, third-grade Danny Artese attempts to turn himself into a plant.

Danny Artese is a NY-based storyteller who has won multiple Moth StorySLAMs and performed at Q.E.D., UCB, The Magnet Theater, and Ripley's Believe It Or Not! While not a scientist by trade, one of the proudest moments of Danny's life was when his high school Biology teacher (Hi Mrs. Beamer!) told his 15-year-old self that he'd be a great gynecologist.

This story originally aired on April 14, 2017.

Story Transcript

So my parents were very much of the “be whatever you want to be” school of parenting, and by the time I got to middle school I had been a jazz dancer and a Boy Scout, and a witch and a pilgrim and a soccer player and a figure skater and a mutant superhero, and only half of those were Halloween costumes. And if you'd ask me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always FAMOUS, but I didn't figure out what I wanted to be famous for doing or for being until third grade and I called a family meeting and I sat my parents down and family meeting was… It wasn't necessarily a surprise to my parents that I would call a family meeting. I had called one not too long prior to present my case to my mom and dad why they needed to have a little brother or sister for me, and I had charts and I had graphs and I had all their objections responded to. It did not work, but this was now the second family meeting that I had called and my parents had never called a family meeting, just eight -year-old me, and so I sat them down. I was going to need their support and their love and some financial resources beyond my two-dollar weekly allowance to fulfill this dream that I had discovered.

I told them, “Mom, Dad, I want to be -- no, I'm going to be a plant.”

And my parents did not shoot me down. They did have some questions, however. They wanted to know where I'd gotten this idea, and they wanted to know how I was going to execute it. And I had answers to both. Because we had just read a book in Ms. Ihara's class called Top Secret, in which the main character, a little boy named Allen, decided that for his science fair project he was going to turn himself into a plant, and he did some research and he found out… Because this is a science-minded crowd, I'm gonna get really technical with you here, and I know you can follow along. He found out that blood and chlorophyll are actually pretty similar and the only real difference between them is a chlorophyll is more magnesium-based and blood is more iron -based. That's it! And so he devised this diet of magnesium-rich foods that would override the iron in his system and turn him into a photo synthesizer, and he'd be a plant. And after a few tweaks he found a formula that worked and his skin turned green and he stopped wanting to sleep, he wanted to be out in the sun, and if he stood too long in one place his feet would grow roots into the ground. And so clearly I wanted to do that to.

And my parents were not fully on board because they were gonna be losing their human son. But after showing them the formula, which was very conveniently reprinted in the book, they were reluctantly onboard. Now it made me think a little bit of the ending of The Little Mermaid, but in reverse. Like do you remember Ariel had a spell that she was a human for three days, and in that time she made prince Eric fall in love with her. Sorry if you haven't seen it -- I'm spoiling it for you. And then the spell was over and she was a mermaid again, but her father, seeing how much in love she was the Prince Eric, used his magic try to turn into human being for good so that she could marry Prince Eric. And even at five years old, a few years earlier, I remember thinking it was actually really sad ending because it meant she could never see her family again and she'd never be able to swim with Sebastian and Flounder again. But this was different because this was not some stupid reason like love. This was for exploration and discovery and for fame.

Because in the book, the president of the United States had contacted this little boy and wanted to know more about this experiment he had done that had worked, and so of course, the president was gonna reach out to me. I figured, you know, as much as I knew that this book is fiction, there were clearly some very factual elements going on in it, and so I knew that the reality would be a little bit different because in addition to the president, of course I was gonna get on TV and I figured a talk show would make the most sense. And probably not Jay Leno because that was past my bedtime, but like more of a Barbara Walters situation, which also works out better because if you're on TV but none of your friends see it, were you really on TV? So she was gonna sit me down and it would be me and the president, and she'd be talking about what this could mean for world hunger and about like furthering the economy, you know, the balance between humanity and plant life, and then the president would say, “Well—“ and then Barbara Walters would say like, “Let Danny speak,” and then I would answer. And then she would surprise me with Ms. Ihara coming out and Ms. Ihara would announce that I not only got an A on my science project of course but that also I had automatic A's and the rest of the year on all my test and all my homework and I didn't have to do any ever again.

Now what was key to this plan was urgency because I didn't know who else in my class may be trying to beat me to the punch and there was no way to get on the front page of the paper and meet the president and Barbara Walters if I was literally the second banana.

And so I told my mom that I needed to go to the grocery store right away to get these ingredients. So we went. And the things I was gonna need for this, this -- it was like a shake, it was all mixed together. I was going to need beans, nuts, and grains. And so we got a can of refried beans and we already had a jar of peanut butter, and for the grains we got Cocoa Puffs ’cause that's pretty close. We were also gonna need saltwater, which I could make. I'm a crafty sort. And then a final key ingredient that we got an entire tub of just to be sure.

And so when we got back to my house I immediately went to the blender and in went the saltwater that I made, the Cocoa Puffs, the peanut butter, the refried beans, and I kinda figured the sweetness of the Cocoa Puffs and the peanut butter would balance out the final ingredient, which was raw chicken liver. Yeah. I had never eaten liver before, much less smelled it, and so I put -- I took a little piece and I dropped it in the blender, and my mom, who had come around to my plan and was fully on board, said, “Why don't you put a little more in, Danny?” So I put another piece in, and she was like, “We want to be sure this is gonna work. How about a little more?”

So we just put the whole tub of gooey chicken organs into the blender and mixed it all up. And when it was liquified all together, it looked a lot like a chocolate milkshake, but just like a little bit grayer, and I had a whole pitcher full. And so I got a glass -- not one of my juice glasses, one of Mommy and Daddy's grown-up glasses -- and I poured it full. And that was when the smell really like hit me, and I don't want to get graphic here. I have already talked about liver. I don't want to overdo this, but it smelled worse than the time I had to get my retainer out of the trash can in the cafeteria. Yeah, that bad.

And so I knew that I could not get down that whole glass, but I was a thinker and so I thought, my dad's espresso cup, because maybe a lot of servings of just a little bit of my liver shake wouldn't be so bad. So I filled my dad's espresso cup and I took a sip. It was not good. It was not good, like in a way that it was worse than my grandma's carrot raisin salad was not good. But I knew I had to drink the whole thing to become a plant so I went for the second sip, and it just really didn't want to go down. And so I didn't throw up or anything, but I spit it out. I spit it out. I couldn't do it. I couldn't get it down. There was no way I was gonna get a whole pitcher down and I poured it down the drain. And along with my gray chocolate liver milkshake, I watched my dreams and hopes dissolve down the drain.

And I didn't become a plant. I didn't become famous, and I didn't get to go on Barbara Walters. I didn't get an automatic A in science. In the long run, I did become a person whose parents had allowed him to live in a world of what could be rather than what was. And in the short run, meaning fourth grade, the next year I became a vegetarian.