Taking an orange for granted

Fruit is starting to irk me.
I’ve been trying to eat healthier and that means peeling more fruit.
Well, what the hell is going on with oranges? I want to go back to the old orange. The one where you cut it into six pieces and then stick it in your mouth like a boxing mouth guard.
You can’t do that anymore. And they aren’t oranges. They’re blood oranges and look like a grapefruit and an orange had an intimate night together at the casino.
They didn’t fare to well because the rind is now prevalent throughout the fleshie part of the fruit and it’s difficult to peel.
I usually put my thumb under one end and then push it back to pull the rind off it and then eat the fruit and throw the skin into the garbage disposal to freshen that up. If you leave it in there and grind it in the morning it leaves a nice citrusy aroma in the kitchen and cleans the blades in the disposal. But run some water in there so it doesn’t vibrate and blow the putty under the sink drain basket. I found a bunch of water under my sink on Monday and had to go all plumber on that thing.
But…ta-daaaah. No Ron Walker help. No check written. Just a trip to Kempkers for a replacement part, some plumbers putty, an extra gasket, and I’m good. Wait, I need some root killer for the toilet system, a new light bulb for the bathroom, some popcorn, a candy bar, and then the image of my wife in my head saying, “Staaaahhhhp!"
So I was did a little plumbing, bragged about my accomplishments to everyone that would listen, including Ron Walker, and now I’m nervous about putting anything in the sink that will vibrate the new basket I just installed. I HATE water leaks. Plumbing is so precarious.
But SO IS FRUIT.
I want to peel an orange and eat the damn thing. I don’t want to have to fight it and have it fall apart in a pink skinny mess. I tailgated at my nephew’s football game at William Penn Saturday and brought some peeled oranges. No one touched them. Cuz’ they looked like soggy grapefruit and were mushy.
The bananas were fine, just a little slimy because I peeled them before zipping them in the gallon storage bag, the apples were fine. But the oranges we’re not amicable to the rest of the cooler participants. Smoked sausage, swiss cheese, pepper jack cheese, crackers, chips, Hawaiian buns and the like. Everything fit perfectly. I had the paper plates, the napkins, a few cold drinks. It all looked like a professional had assembled the brunch-style tailgate experience, but someone let Chuck do the oranges.
Seriously though, what’s happening with that fruit? They call them cara cara oranges and they are supposed to be sweeter than regular naval oranges. They have the pink fleshy inside with the extra rind, but they are NOT sweeter. And even the oranges that are labeled as navel oranges have an issue.
I want my oranges back. I want people to stop genetically modifying my food. I want an orange. As Counting Crows sang, ‘I don’t care about spots on my apples, leave me the birds and bees….pleeasse.’ And in the case of these imposter oranges, we really “don’t know what we’ve got til it’s gone’. Because I can’t find a regular orange anymore.
I don’t care about sugar bomb grapes that taste like cotton candy and I don’t need seventeen different brands of lemons. Just get good at what you’re good at. I’ll buy the fruit and the honey and the cinnamon. I just want to throw it all in a bowl diced up, drizzled with honey and sprinkled with cinnamon. No extra sugar or ‘raw sugar’ or stevia or whatever. Just the fruit as it’s always been in a big bowl – all mixed together.
That’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh…I like it. Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Aside from my disappointment in the Vitamin C world and my now paranoid stance with the average cold, I can manage to choke down some of the modified oranges or even those creepie “cutie” things. But when I go to the store and get an orange, I at least want to be able to get what used to be called an orange.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s just a fruit, but in the daily routine of all things I shouldn’t have to call an audible for a piece of fruit. I like my fruit sweet, easily manageable, and familiar to the tongue. Anything else is uncivilized.
Speaking of sweet and orange, the Bloodhounds wore orange “80”s on black t-shirts Friday night to honor the Washington Demons who lost a student to a tragic hunting accident in September. Kelly Knustrom’s volleyball team and many other teams in the area honored Carson Ryan over the past few weeks. It says more about our people than who can beat whom. That’s something we can really savor, and it’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.