As we prepare for our 4th of July gatherings, a reader reminded me of this from 2006, reposted by request.
Against all sense, and my own better judgment, I today took a trip to the local Costco in order to buy hamburgers, chicken legs and marinade in the mass quantities needed in order to entertain guests on the Fourth of July.
It was there, in the teeming, steaming rotisserie chicken section of the store that my senses became heightened and my consciousness got raised. I had an epiphany.
The problem with the whole world, and everything in it, is fruit. Specifically strawberries and pineapples. And melons of all variation.
But mostly, it’s the strawberries.
This understanding came upon me not in the light breath of an angel’s song, but in the crash of one shopping cart head-on into mine, the spilling of a recently taken-from-the-spit chicken (and its bubbling hot juices) onto my sandal-clad foot and the unmistakable sound of a Long Island woman out of control. “Oh, my Gawwwwd, I’m so sooooooaaaawry! Ah you awriiiiiiht? I was just tryin’ ta get ta them strawberries! Oh, my Gawwwd, I feel so baaaiiihhhd!”
Let me try to do justice to the way this singular creature (she exists nowhere but on Long Island and in 4 of New York City’s 5 boroughs) pronounced the word “strawberries,” because – as Captain Queeg will tell you – the strawberries are key to the revelation.
For the purposes of this narrative, anytime you encounter the word “strawberry(ies)” do not imagine “straw” to be pronounced, as it is west of the Rockies, “strahh.” Nor may you take it to sound like a Kate Hepburn midlanticish “strahw.” No, in order to find enlightenment – in order to understand what I came to understand as I clutched at my greasy, burning foot, assured the woman that all was quite alright and bade her to please hurry along – you must in this case imagine “strawberry” to be heard thusly: “Stru-auorwwwberries.”
Elongate the “au” sound until it resembles the sound you made in college after too many boilermakers and add an “oar-w” to it, and you begin to do it justice.
This lady was not the only person behaving badly over summer fruit.
Now, I generally avoid fruit. Aside from Fuji Apples, Bing Cherries and an occasional naval orange, fruit and I do not hang together. I find most fruits (and fruit juices) to be indigestible company and they burn my tongue, besides. When I encounter fruit, my practice is to make a detour toward the breads. This is probably why I did not understand until today the enormous impact fruit has on the world and the people in it. Corralled fruit-side by the crowd of shoppers, I found myself surrounded by peaches, plums, nectarines, grapes, mangoes, bananas, troubling red seedy things I could not comprehend, and pineapples and strawberries.
Most of the fruit seemed perfectly respectable, laying there in all innocence, not really impacting the world. The troublemakers were the strawberries and pineapples who were – quite tellingly – isolated together in one aisle, a snobbish little clique, and they were inciting a riot.
“Ohmigawwwwd,” a man cried to his wife. “Stru-auorwwwberries! Hon, we gotta get struauorwwwberries!”
He sounded, my hand to Gawd, like he’d been clued in to the mysterious and mystical powers of the berries all his life, and had thus far been denied access to them.
His wife was equally starry-eyed, but her prostrations were meant for another. “Lookit the poineapple! Oh my Gawd, LOOKIT the POINAPPLE! I gotta get dose!”
Lowly grapes were cast thoughtlessly cast aside. Plums, proudly showing off their darkened summer curves, lay unmolested by the most determined fruit-squeezers. People were falling all over themselves for da stuauorberries and da poinapples. Even the lovely, quiet Indian lady in the sari, with whom I’d co-incidentally been traveling through much of the store, lost her reserve upon sight of the berry. “Gopal!” she hollered to her son in a voice surprisingly like a claxon horn. “Strawbeddies! You get the strawbeddies! I’ll get the (insert Hindu word for foul, scratchy, acidic, tongue-burning fruit, aka pineapple)” She then motored over to the pineapple like a small, decorative Sherman Tank and began elbowing (gently, but firmly) people away from her chosen pineapple – the one pineapple to rule them all – and she clutched it to herself and made off like Gollum with his Precious.
Fruit, I decided, makes people lose their minds. That can’t be good.
I checked out and made my way to my car, mulling over the problem of fruit and its impact on the world. I watched a boundary-challenged father allow his insistent five-year old daughter to haul a watermelon from their wagon and into their SUV. She nearly dropped the thing; and her knees buckled and her back bent under the weight as she doggedly clutched the enormous, seed-filled seducer to her chest before launching it haphazardly onto a pile of hamburger rolls. “Aw, look what you did,” the stupid father moaned, “you crushed the bread with the melon.”
“That’s because she should not have been allowed to carry a giant piece of fruit, you melonhead,” the crabby mother opined, and family fun-time began in that car.
Having hastily packed my own purchases, I pulled out from my parking spot and spied an attractive blonde woman in my rear view mirror. She carried a pineapple and a pack of socks, and when I tell you that she was gazing upon her pineapple with a look of fascinated awe, I do not exaggerate. Entranced by its thorny lure, the woman seemed completely unaware of her surroundings, and I hastily jammed on my brakes.
She walked into my car. Yes. Carrying a pineapple, the woman walked. Into. My car. Head-on. Her abdomen and boobs went boinnnnng!
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, laughing at herself, “I didn’t even see you! I was looking at my pineapple.”
“Yes,” I smiled, cringing inwardly and begging God and all of the angels in heaven that this woman would not now find it necessary to file a police report and sue my ass for having the temerity to be in her way while she was walking amid moving cars and admiring her tropical fruit. “I saw you looking at your pineapple.”
“Isn’t it huge?” she asked proudly, reminding me of a former sister-in-law showing off her engagement diamond.
“It’s just lovely,” I offered as she happily walked away. She was beaming. Simply beaming. A big pineapple had completely stolen her brains and replaced them with some sort of happy-soma thing. You could have fed her soylent green, and she would be beaming, still. She had a pineapple. All was right with her world.
The frenzy of the fruitlovers disturbed me greatly. In the space of one hour, I had seen fruit inspire two accidents that could have resulted in injury or – were I or others the litigious types – lawsuits. I had seen fruit cause people to knock other people aside. I had seen it rattle their priorities. Fruit had caused people’s eyes to glaze over, their jaws to go slack, their reason to flee. My experience at Costco has given me a glimpse into the core of universal behavior, and the core is rotten and has far too many seeds.
Fruit, I now understand, causes within people a diabolical disorientation, and that disorientation spreads into every aspect of humanity. Fruit captivates the attention and leads to painful mishaps. Fruit causes aggression, which leads to war. It inspires prostration and adoration, which leads to idolatry and misplaced allegiances. Fruit flummoxes a man’s ability to reason, impacting his marriage and his daughter’s self-esteem and future lumbar health. Fruit maketh a woman into a blithe-and-brainless spirit, content to bounce from car-to-car like a well-flicked pinball. These people go out into the world. They write books. They teach. They govern nations. They program network television. They make editorial decisions in news departments – all while distracted and disoriented by a small red berry that is, in my opinion, useful only as a delivery system for dark chocolate, and a scratchy yellow thing that is neither a pine nor an apple.
No wonder the world is in the shape its in.
But I make you this promise. I will never succumb to the lure of the fruit. I will never allow myself to become disoriented and possessed by this diabolical controller. When you come here, you are safe. Me and my Cheez-its, we swear it.
Aside: I have had an email or two accusing me of antisemitism in this post, apparently because the reader attached a Jewish persona to the typical Long Island accents I’ve tried to draw here. Since my impression of the woman with the chicken was that she was as Irish-American and freckled as I am, and the rest were largely “generic” impressions I got, I can only assume that if someone wants to think of any of these folks as specifically Jewish, then that’s what they’ll do. Before accusing me of antisemitism ask yourself, perhaps, why you assigned a Jewish persona to the accents. Meanwhile, clearly, conveying accents is not something I write well. I’ll have to work on it! 
July 1st, 2009 | 10:56 am | #1
Funniest. Post. Evah!
July 1st, 2009 | 11:36 am | #2
It’s not all that unusual for it to rain on the Fourth of July.
Accordingly –
Seriously, now, can we really, in good faith and conscience, celebrate THIS Fourth of July as a day of FREEDOM and LIBERTY? The storm clouds of authoritarian thuggery are upon us. Would that this were 1776, or even 1876, then folks might be willing to do something other than watch our nation go down into the galleys and fields. Sadly, it seems that July 14 is more applicable to our situation (or November 7 (October 25)) than is July 4.
When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Tell me comrades, have we kept it?
July 1st, 2009 | 11:43 am | #3
Reminds me of a road trip from DC to the Meadowlands with fellow Texans to watch the Cowboys play the Giants.
Our arrival at the stadium was accented by the parking lady’s greeting “Ten dwahlahs”. Apparently Edith Bunker moonlights on Sunday mornings. The four of us sat waiting for more amazing sounds from the lady’s mouth but all she offered was an echo of her previous statement.
Then, inside the stadium, seated behind us were two couples who to this day must have burning ears because I tell this story so much. One of the men was angry with his ladt friend because she had a crush on the Cowboy QB Troy Aikman. The man finally pursuaded his love to cheer against Aikman and she did so con gusto.
As Aikman fled rushing defensive linemen I heard the horridly pitched scream from behind me, “Geeyet Heeyem, geyeht hee-uh-ee-uh-ee-uhmmmmmmmm.” She then paused in self awareness and possibly cued by the nervously but quietly laughing shoulders of four Texans in the row below her and then went on with “Ohhmigwaawd, I sound like a howswife hews hahd her gha-row-ser-eees stohwlen.”
[That is as foine a depiction of the Lawn Guyland as I've read. Nearly incomprehensible. I believe it has to do with the mingling of Dutch and Celtic accents! -admin]
July 1st, 2009 | 11:44 am | #4
HILARIOUS!! LOL. You got that accent JUST RIGHT. I have a friend here in Bisbee, Az who is from LonGGGG Island, and she tauwks just like that, and she’s of Scottish heritage. I spent 30 years in NJ, and knew lots of people from LI, and they ALL spoke like that. Just remember you can’t please all of the people all of the time, except me. I’ve never read anything you’ve written that I didn’t like, except maybe in the beginning a few years ago, but it caused me to look inward, and lo and behold, here I am back in The Church. Thank you.
July 1st, 2009 | 12:13 pm | #5
ROFLOL!
I confess to shopping at Costco frequently and running into people or having them run into me. It’s not necessarily strawberries–it’s what I think of as Costco-induced Attention Deficit Disorder.
Which reminds me, I have to make a trip there before the 4th. I’m bringing salad to the family barbecue…
July 1st, 2009 | 12:20 pm | #6
Just for the record, not everyone from LI tawks like that. But everyone from LI can tawk that way if they want to.
July 1st, 2009 | 12:25 pm | #7
the poison who sed yer antisemitic duzzn’t know lawnguyland. All of em tawk at way.
(just an aside: the “toity toid” street NY accent is descended from Yorkshire)
July 1st, 2009 | 12:30 pm | #8
Lo, it shall be aeons after that the faithful come, in the fructification of their years, to know the deeper meaning of the Parable of the Strawberries and Pineapples that the prophetess Anchoress doth tell
July 1st, 2009 | 12:30 pm | #9
here’s an edifying example of the LI accent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAxfh8ukosQ
July 1st, 2009 | 12:41 pm | #10
I was curious about the pronunciations involved, until you reached the point about the pineapples. Then it all congealed in my mind. Like some sordidly arrange Yankee congealed fruit salad.
And some people think that we talk funny in the south.
July 1st, 2009 | 12:49 pm | #11
Poifect post! Dawlin’, dat’s how dey tawk down in da Irish Channel of Noo Awlins. Maybe it’s time to enlawge the coicle convoked in “A Confederacy of Dunces.”
July 1st, 2009 | 1:01 pm | #12
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
LOL!!! HAHAHAHA!!!
Pounding the desk.
I live in Staten Island which was invaded by Brooklynites and Lawngislanders after the Verrazano Narrows Bridge was built and you got that accent spot on.
HAHAHAH!!!
July 1st, 2009 | 1:25 pm | #13
Oh now come on, Anchoress! Fruit isn’t so bad. You just have to know what to do with it. Even as we speak I am braising a piece of pork shoulder in some. Pork and lamb both love to be cooked in fruit.
Pineapple pulp is too acidic because you don’t let the pulp release the off flavored vapors overnight before you eat it, and you can take the process further, if you insist on it being even sweeter, by adding sliced bananas to it as it mellows in the refrigerator. Serve them very lightly drizzled with honey.
Or puree them in the blender and then blend in with 2% Vanilla yogurt and a sweet 100% fruit juice–two parts yogurt, one part puree, and one part juice–varying these to taste for a whole palate of effects. Milkshakes are but ham-handed, coarse textured fodder in comparison.
And strawberries? They’re not just for chocolate anymore. They never were. Slices of them belong in the lightest and most delicate of German white wines. Tennis is being played at Wimbledon and the Brits are lapping up Devonshire clotted cream and strawberries with mad abandon. Do you think that “Plum” Wodehouse would have run away from it?
Oh yes, and speaking of the superior culinary skills of monks, have you never heard of Mission Figs? Do you think that the California Franciscans had any less commitment to replicating manna in the wilderness than your boys do to roasting coffee?
And who would want to wander the rocky land bridge of Corinth on the road from Athens to Sparta, without sweet grapes contrasted to salty calamata olives, supplemented by goat cheese and coarse bread, and, if you’ve cultivated the taste for it, Retsina wine?
Finally, if you insist on 21st century decadence, I dare you to turn up your nose at Sunkist Plum Sweets–pieces of plum covered with the darkest of chocolate–once you have tried them.
You need to broaden your horizons and follow the example of a seasoned fruitcake like me.
[You may have a point about the grapes and olives and I will try those plums...but the poinapple still burns my tongue! admin]
July 1st, 2009 | 1:25 pm | #14
Love your descriptions, very funny! I laughed so much, you made my day! It’s amazing what fresh fruit does to people. Have a great 4th of July.
July 1st, 2009 | 1:40 pm | #15
Brava! What a vivid and funny post. Even if I can’t agree with your knee jerk fruit prejudice
, I can still live and let live if entertained well enough.
That said, the new fruit czar just appointed by the Obama administration has already heard about this post is on his way to question you.
July 1st, 2009 | 1:49 pm | #16
Peggy, we have a fruit czar now? Please don’t tell me his first name rhymes with carney…
July 1st, 2009 | 3:52 pm | #17
I will tell you how funny this is. If someone had told me Rachel Lucas wrote it I would have believed them! It is your funniest blog evah, indeed.
FYI we had a wonderful family reunion last weekend 75 people present, including wonderful Eric and Kelly, a happy couple who are awaiting an adopted baby. No one from Long Island, though.
July 1st, 2009 | 4:12 pm | #18
I remember this one! Hilarious! In fact, I linked to it again a couple of weeks ago.
July 1st, 2009 | 5:24 pm | #19
That was one of your funniest posts! After having been to Costco today with all the Costco-induced ADD folks preparing for the holiday weekend, it lifted my spirits. Thanks for the laugh. Enjoy your July 4th!!
July 1st, 2009 | 6:44 pm | #20
Many years ago the Times of London asked a number of public intellectuals what was wrong with the world.
Chesterton sent in the following.
Dear Sirs:
I am
Sincerely yours,
GK Chesterton
July 1st, 2009 | 11:44 pm | #21
A real tour de force!
Costco…enter at your risk and exit the same way.You actually got the borough accent down just right. How do I know…I cringed and giggled.
And all this time, I thought the real danger was waiting for the chickens to come out of the rotisserie with wild-eyed shoppers charging in the same direction.
July 2nd, 2009 | 12:37 am | #22
It’s pronounced ’stwawbewwy’ and ‘poiwnapple’ by everyone for whom ‘kawai’ is a real concept…….
It’s because those fruits have that disturbing quality of ‘moe’ (pronounced mo-eh, meaning ‘budding’) expressed in terms of a feminine cuteness, but then I have a disturbing notion that for many people of all ages and both genders, the ideal state of existence is as a fourteen-year-old girl…..
I’ve heard the squeals at the fresh fruit gondolas in Festival Foods – “hah, wookie!!….. stwawbewwies….. kawaii!!1!!”……..
July 2nd, 2009 | 3:51 am | #23
Brilliant post, thank you. I have sampled many truly weird fruits, some surpassing even durian or jaboticaba in their obscurity, but I go for the starches, too. May I suggest, however, that a really, really good mango is something sublime and unsurpassed in this life. After that you can just sneer at any other technicolor seed-bearing bauble.
July 2nd, 2009 | 6:12 am | #24
Still laughing at this post. One of your all-time best. And absolutely you could be mimicing the Yatccent from New Orleans, where I live. (except we don’t tend to lose our collective minds over fruit. We just walk into cars as a matter of habit)
Perhaps it’s all the rain y’all have been having up the Eastern Seaboard that has people mesmerized by fruit from Costco. I hear Spring never really came and summer is drowning. Hope you dry out and sent some wet this direction. We’re fryin’ down here.
July 2nd, 2009 | 10:40 am | #25
[...] I’d like to encourage all of you to go read Eve Tusnet’s piece at InsideCatholic.com, entitled “Romoeroticism.” Over the past several months I have come to enjoy a Triumvirate of Catholic Lady-Bloggers, composed of Eve, Helen Rittelmeyer (who now blogs over at American Spectator, or so I hear) and Elizabeth Scalia (who blogs at The Anchoress). The three are linked principally by their rancor and wit, though significant thematic currents run across their writing. Eve and Mrs. Scalia (as the venerable matriarch of the convocation, I feel that she merits a greater measure of deference) both dabble in hagiography (the best of the Anchoress is certainly her occasional podcasts of Vespers or Compline) and recipe-blogging. Helen and Eve share a crusty, pseudo-MacIntyrean traditionalism. Each of them occasionally unveils very personal struggles upon their various Hills of Difficulty. Helen loves boxing, Eve loves strange tags (”other people paid me to write this,” ”turn your watch back about a hundred thousand years“), and Mrs. Scalia hates fruit. [...]
July 2nd, 2009 | 11:36 am | #26
[...] some TSA worker have an experience with snow globes similar to The Anchoress’ experience with fruit? Comments [...]
July 3rd, 2009 | 10:25 am | #27
Let’s not forget it all started with a little apple in the Garden of Eden!
July 3rd, 2009 | 12:58 pm | #28
[You oughta buy some Mystic Monk Coffee to make iced coffee to go with them!
]
July 3rd, 2009 | 6:28 pm | #29
July 3rd, 2009 | 6:29 pm | #30
I forgot to mention that Mom is baking a strudel and our guests are on the way.
July 6th, 2009 | 10:32 am | #31
Anchoress – that is one of your best posts EVER! We have a new Wegman’s here in my neck of the woods and I must tell you – the parking lot and the store are so incredibly crowded it’s WORSE than Costco on Sundays! The mouth-breathers are out in force!
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