Artichoke: You're trying too hard

The artichoke, from the Eager Plant genus, that grows at my child's school

I've been watching this artichoke grow at Child 2's school since early spring. It started small enough, but then it grew into this enormous, multi-faceted, elaborately complicated thing with giant, stretching branches and huge leaves... all for just one little artichoke! All of that greenery and effort for just one tiny little artichoke that hangs out at the top. You can't really see its endeavor that well in this picture because it's starting to die, but when it was in full force, that sure was a sight to see. You can kind of see it in this picture, although this isn't the one I've been watching for months:

And then, somebody is going to buy the thing for maybe a dollar, and then there's all that work that goes into eating one of these things; pulling off the leaf-thingies and scraping your teeth along it to get a tiny little piece of something or other (with all of the flavor coming from whatever concoction you're dipping it in), and some substance in the middle that's hiding behind all that weird furry stuff that you have to scrape off and tastes horrible if you accidentally eat some. How much actual food do you get out of one of these things? Maybe an ounce if you're lucky?

I'm going to start boycotting artichokes, just on principle. That much effort for so little reward, and on so many levels, it just doesn't seem worth it.

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