the Fruit Man

The fruit man pays a scheduled visit to my husband’s workplace bringing fresh fruit for sale. I am uncertain of the frequency of his visits, but I believe he comes less often than the pate` man (who is actually an elderly woman) but more often than the fish man.

After weeks of missed opportunities, we finally struck a deal with the fruit man. For months papayas have flourished in our yard enjoyed only by the birds and one guest who found them delicious. I confess, I’m not crazy about papaya because they remind me too much of cantaloupe, the only fruit (until now) that I do not like. My husband falls into the cantaloupe category, too. I must further digress and share a cantaloupe story.

At a former workplace in Knoxville, TN (insert obligatory yelp of either ‘Rocky Top’ or ‘Go VOLs’), a kind volunteer brought cantaloupe to my supervisor, fellow coworker and me. All of us, it turned out, abhor cantaloupe. We left the melons in the kitchen, then moved them towards the door, then overwhelmed by the musky perfumed aroma that seemed to permeate out office to the point of nausea, my boss put them out the door. There’s something intimidating about a fruit that can smell you out of your office.

Back to the fruit man. We have sour orange, key lime, grapefruit, carambola (star fruit) and sugar apples. We hoped to trade any of these (we have an ample supply) for bananas. Nope, the fruit man only wants papayas. He has everything else. Of course when he makes his first visit, none of the papayas are ready. Only three can be found and one of those was maimed by birds during a three day visit to Puerto Rico.

These bananas were given to me by our house painter, CM Painting. He traded us for key limes and sour orange. These bananas are half the size of the average US grocery store variety, but wonderfully sweet. Now, we’re tasked with eating them all.