Several months ago, I ran across a news story about a strange individual who had an unhealthy penchant for healthy eating.

Several months ago, I ran across a news story about a strange individual who had an unhealthy penchant for healthy eating. It seems that this gentleman was impressed with the amount of money that a local student organization had raised by holding a bake sale, and he wanted in on the action. Unfortunately, his plan hit a snag: he was not willing to sell anything unhealthy. Still, he was convinced that he could raise just as much money as the students without selling any brownies, cookies, or cakes by holding his very own salad sale!Being unscrupulous and broke, this man did not pursue any legitimate means of procuring the necessary ingredients for his roadside salad bar. He resorted to theft. The news reported that he actually stole 1000 pounds of cucumbers from a local farmer, and then hid the stash in his garage while he waited for the authorities to give up on the case.Finally, after a month spent dreaming of cucumber peels flying around an industrial-sized salad spinner, this mischievous individual returned to the garage to retrieve the contraband cucumbers. Unfortunately, things were not as he had hoped….You see, cucumbers are 99% water. When he left the cucumbers sitting out for a month, some of the water evaporated. By the time the man retrieved the cucumbers, their water content had decreased all the way from 99% to an embarrassingly dehydrated 98%! So, after weeks of planning and a month of anticipation, the cucumbers no longer weighed 1000 pounds. How many pounds of cucumbers were actually available for the man to use in his salad sale?