CubiCumbers

I have found some difficulty recently while slicing irregularly-shaped cucumbers for her Ladyship's afternoon sandwiches. The curve in the cucumber means that the slices become erratic in thickness, not to mention the cylindrical shape wanting to roll across the cutting board while being sliced. And differing diameter cucumbers produce unpleasant divergences from her Ladyship's preferred 1.473" cucumber slice size.

Then the solution struck me. Of course, the cucumber should be encouraged to grow straight, uniform, and square in section as well, thus obviating all objections caused by food use of the normal kind above.

A reasonably rigid square-section transparent plastic box, open at both ends, with internal dimensions of 1.473" x 1.473" and 16" in length, is slipped over the incipient cucumber when it is yet tiny. As the CubiCumber grows, it fills out the internal space in the box, growing nicely into the corners, and therefore becoming cuboid. Thus constrained athwartships, it can only now expand longitudinally. A small microswitch at each end of the box is tripped when the cucumber tips expand past the box's confines, illuminating a red "pick me" OLED on the box, which is of course solar powered.

The grower, thus alerted to the availability of a perfectly-formed product, plucks said cuke from the vine, and without removing its box, places it reverently into the collection basket. This has the added benefit of preserving the delicate flesh of the cubicumber from damage from its basketmates.

The box is of course biodegradable. Alternatively it can be returned to the grower for reuse, with a suitable credit.

To add to the attractiveness of this scheme for major grocery chains, an engraved logo or word can be moulded into each side of the box, producing a pleasingly embossed phrase on each face of the fruit. "Enjoy your DangerousWay CubiCumber" perhaps.

And what follows? CubiZucchini? CubiSquash? CubiPumpkin? The imagination reels.