Relax. We’re talkin’ fresh fruit. 
I’m in the stupidmarket yesterday, because I was asked to bring fruit to a dinner party. Fine and dandy, I can lay out a highly attractive fruit platter, given the right materials, an hour and a paring knife.
My nostrils and fingertips were at the ready. I perused the entire bin filled with cantaloupes. Gentle palpation of the full smooth melons yielded not one but two likely candidates. My search was difficult, for I had no lead time- no time to allow the smooth beautiful curved melons to ripen in the brilliant glowing light of the Sun. Nay, this was an emergency search.
Having secured two most excellent feeling and smelling cantaloupes, I moved on to the honeydew bin. To me, honeydew is the pluperfect melon. The color of it’s meat is dazzling, it’s sweet succulence is a romantic promenade along a moonlight-drenched strip of beach. All in all, quite the melon. Once again, my finely honed olfactory glands and equally sensitive tactile nerves rose to the task with turgid eagerness.
Much as I tried, I could only find one honeydew that was suitable for my platter, and so went with the one that delievered a slight yield to my manly touch, and the hintiest hint of nectar to my overzealous nostrils.
I returned to my abode, and proceeded to prepare what I believed would be the first in a colorful flurry of fine fruit trays this summer. The strawberries? Lush and juicy. The grapes? A deep supple crimson red, firm and tasty. Not too sweet, but a hint of the tangy complexities that can be coaxed into a fine wine. The bosch pears were rigid yet slightly juicy, as expected. Thinly sliced, they are the perfect foil to the more moist offerings.
I saved the melons for last because, after all, who goes for the melons first? Upon first cut, I was pleased that they seemed ripe and ready to be placed against hungry mouths. Both the cantaloupe and honeydew appeared to be oh just so ready. Almost tumescent in their readiness, but I doth dare not say such.
They tasted awful. Not like fruit gone over, but they were nearly devoid of the sweetness that I’d anticipated. I chose only the center cut slices, and used them anyway. They were unpopular, next to the grapes, apples, pears, strawberries and other sliced fruits.
Why, oh why? Why were they perfect as they rested heavily in my palm in the brazen openness of the supermarket, allowing me to gauge and heft until I believed I had found fructose-laden perfection? Why had they let me down at the crucial moment?
What is it about fresh fruit that appears to be ripened, but tastes awful because it is “out of season” ?? What is it about full large pre-ripened melons, shipped in from Argentina or Venezuela and timed to land in my stupidmarke at the right moment, that permits a visual, tactile and olfactory inspection to be tricked? Why is it that one can never go wrong when buying these most amazing melons in late July and August when they’re grown locally? Ripe is ripe is ripe I say, and never the melons may differ.
I’ve been let down by three of the finest melons I’ve seen in months, and I want to know why.
Cartooniverse
