Peachtarines

When I was in high school I did a lot of pretty stupid things. Funny that the place where you are attempting to learn how to be smarter is the same place you do your stupidest things.

I don’t know why or how it started, but for some bizarre reason, I decided that I would never launder my gym outfit. Ever! Perhaps it was my way of standing out of the crowd in gym class. God knows I stunk badly enough that no one would stand anywhere near me. Strength of smell was the only strength I had in class. I read somewhere that if you didn’t wash your socks for long enough, they would eventually get stiff enough to stand on their own. This is something I would dearly love to see before I die. I never did manage it in high school.

My gym outfit would generally get washed at least once a year. I had to clear out my locker at the end of the year and somehow (stench?) my mom would find the bag and toss everything in the washing machine. I’d come home and see a freshly laundered pair of green shorts, white t-shirt and white socks with green stripes sitting on my bed. No matter how hard I tried to explain my plan to mom, she just didn’t get it. Early on in grade 10, the back of my t-shirt was torn off and for the rest of the term; I wore it like a tiny cape. Eventually, the Phys Ed teacher tore it off my back and tossed it in the garbage. Since we had to have a full gym outfit, I needed a new t-shirt. Foiled again!

I have always wondered what happened to those socks. I kind of lost interest in them around the time I gained interest in girls. Now I’d be interested in finding out if they are indeed standing in a locker or a closet somewhere. It is possible they became self aware and started travelling. Maybe they found work on a fruit farm.

The other week, I was at the grocery store and I saw a lovely display of nectarines or peachtarines, maybe they were some odd kind of tropical fruit. I thought they would be tasty. I could hardly wait to get home and have some fresh fruit. I have no idea what these things were, but they were a long way from fresh. They tasted like a fruit genetically modified to be a blend of a peach and the old gym socks that I wore in high school. Why anyone would create something like that is beyond me. I just know that someone did.

I bought four of these “fruits”, I spat out one mouthful and the rest went into the garbage. I didn’t want to contaminate my compost bin. The trouble was, sometimes when you get a bag of peanuts, there is a rotten one, but the rest are just fine. It was possible that the same could be true with the peachtarines. There was no way I was going to put another piece in my mouth, so I tried to convince Louise to have some. Unfortunately, she saw me spit out the first one and wasn’t about to be my guinea pig.

I couldn’t just toss them in the compost (for sure) or the garbage, I paid good money for them. There is the off chance that the others would be delectable. There is a chance… I decided that I would deal with them like I have dealt with most difficult decisions in my life, I’ll just ignore them for a while and the solution is sure to present itself.

I kind of thought that the solution would be Louise throwing them in the garbage, but that didn’t happen. Instead, time passed and eventually I noticed that the peachtarines had grown a kind of green fuzzy coating. Mould is always a good reason to throw out fruit. To tell you the truth, most of our vegetables and fruit are dealt with in a similar manner.

Once again, if you give a problem enough time and manage to ignore it then eventually it will find its own solution.