Wed 22 Mar 2006
The avocado that I had brought with me to work yesterday in Grace’s bag had been sitting on my kitchen counter for a week and a half, still hard as a rock, and I figure that since it’s been like 60 degrees Fahrenheit in my house, the avocado hasn’t ripened because it thought it was in the refrigerator. It sat for a day on my desk at work, and then this morning, it did feel like a slightly softer rock than it’d felt all week. I decided to cut into it length-wise.
The reason I was eager to cut it was because, while I was complaining about its stubborn hardness in jujitsu last week, my instructor had asked, “Is it a very large avocado?” I told him it was. “Uh-oh. It might rot on the inside before it softens on the outside, because it’s so big.”
So the plastic knife I used strained and creaked against the hard avocado, which almost felt crisp as its skin reluctantly gave way to my sawing. I couldn’t get the knife to cut in closer to the seed, so I ended up having to pry the avocado open. After exerting some brute force, it snapped open. The seed’s thin brown outer skin separated from the whitish brainy-looking inside of the seed, such that half the brown seed-skin stuck to the inside of both halves of the avocado. I could not peel it off the halves. I tried to insert my spoon into the flesh of the avocado, but the spoon couldn’t break through the rubber avocado flesh. I looked closer at the white seed I pulled out, and it already has a half-inch stem coming out of one end! So this stupid thing was about to SPROUT and it STILL won’t ripen?! I bit into a little portion of the hard avocado flesh on the corner. It was bitter as rubber, too. Stupid tease of a fruit.
For punishment, I decided to put the white seed in a clear plastic cup in water and put it on display in shame. It really does look like a brain. If anyone asks what’s in my cup, I’m gonna say that I got attacked by a male mountain lion who, after I was through with him, is only half male now.
Sorry for the bad quality of the photos, all I have is my cameraphone. Rest your mouse pointer over the photos for captions.
This is like an episode of “Steve, Don’t eat this!”.. before I read your blog I looked at the pictures… the first thought that came to my mind is “she’s got a freakin’ brain in a shot glass… in a courtroom”.. a ha.. evidence! But then I read it.. so, I look at pictures before reading, so what.. I’m like a 4th grader at heart.
So in keeping with the Steven theme.. you should add some things to the glass.. let it sit in the witness chair for a week… then eat it. Come on… Yew can dew iiiiiiit!!
I’m actually trying to grow it. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do if it does sprout roots and a stem, tho. Give it to my parents, I suppose. Right now it’s just my little pet to ease my loneliness.
Oh, and it’s not a shot glass. It’s an actual full-sized cup. That’s how big the damn thing is.
ps: LOL to “If anyone asks what’s in my cup, I’m gonna say that I got attacked by a male mountain lion who, after I was through with him, is only half male now.”
ok now label the cup as stated above… then eat it.. pass out vomit bags.
I’m glad you got that. Once when my ex and his friends were over getting drunk at my house, his friend decided to be a smart-ass and ask me where my neutered cat’s balls are.
Me: They’re preserved in a baby food jar in my fridge, next to the pickled fetus.
Him: *blinking, not sure if he heard me right in his drunkenness* What? You have a fetus in a jar?
Me: Yeah.
Him: Whose fetus is it?
Me: Mine! I’m not gonna have someone ELSE’S fetus in my fridge! Ew, how gross is THAT!
He just stared at me. But hey, if you’re gonna ask me a stupid question, expect a stupid answer.
HOWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.
I know I liked you for a reason.
I thought it was because of the money I send you to be my friend every week.
well about that money… my rent went up… sooooooooooooo
[…] Yup, the avocado is still there in its little clear plastic cup of shame. Kind of like how people were punished in the ol’ Medieval days by being shackled and locked head and hands in a wooden stock and people would walk by and laugh at them or throw apples at them. […]
Punishing an avocado? Honey, pull your green thumb out of your ass and get a life!
Apparently some people don’t understand tongue-in-cheek humor. The world’s a dark place if you can’t lighten up.
Lime Jelly!!!!
I found this anecdote by googling lion+avcado. The story behind that is….well… a bit more than I’ll go into here… but…
Just drop the seed into a pot – it’ll grow. 4 years ago, I did just that 9actually 3 seeds)much to the chagrin of everyone I told. They all said I had to do the toothpick and half submerged thing THEN plant it. Today I’ve got 3 trees in one pot – each almost 4 feet in height. I will have the last word when these “kids” produce for me 🙂
ps – whatchya think about that, lion??? (pal)
Lions love bears you know…like i love you…
Lions and bloggers and bears, oh my! Bear, I’m inclined to agree with you. These are baby pictures. See child pictures of this infant in a more recent post:
http://cindy.ocliw.com/?p=740
I think your plant is beautiful! I recently was inclined to try an avo…but didn’t care for the taste. I think my grocer where I bought it is handling bad avos…I’ll have to go to California for GOOD avos…but I may just pick another one up and start a plant. That way its a constant reminder of why I was initally inclined to try them.
Definitely, come to California for the avocados! I didn’t like them when I first tried them, either. My taste for them developed with guacamole, then turkey + avocado sandwiches, and now avocado straight. They’re great for your hair. My reporter and I have discovered that eating 1 avocado a day makes us grow new hairs on our head. We both had to cut bangs to hide our new flyaway baby hairs.
I have found that avocados and mangos taste WONDERFUL together…almost like a pineapple flavor…and I have planted 3 seeds into a pot, upon Bears recommendation. One is the toothpick method sitting on my kitchen window. We’ll see what happens! 😉
Good luck! I just found out today that another coworker is going to try the same thing I did.
[…] Did anyone reading this understand that conversation? Haha. BTW, see TurboTiger’s researched information in his comment on the previous post. His research said that there are indeed two “genders” of avocado trees, but instead of being a full male and a full female, one tree is male in the mornings and female in the afternoons, and the other one is female in the mornings and male in the afternoons. Can we say, “Ranma 1/2″? (Okay, who got that?) His research also showed that avocados start flowering in 5+ years (not 2-3), and that the tree needs to first be a height of like 15 feet to trigger it to flower. *looking at tree* *taking out ruler* My little avocado tree is 32 inches above the dirt right now. That’s just short of 3 feet. *sigh* Also, the avocado seed first went into the cup of water on March 22, 2006 and I think the first real growth appeared on it on April 6, 2006, so that’d make our boy…1 year and 3 months old. *looking at tree* *sigh* […]