I just found this on Mark Oestreicher's blog...then, today in the grocery store produce department, i saw a stack of little watermelons, each about 6″ or 8″ in diameter. and then i noticed the sign for them:
personal watermelons. i’m not sure why this both cracked me up and distrubed me. i guess it seemed (i know i’m slightly stretching it here, but that’s what metaphors do, right?) like a metaphor for the over-individuation of our world, especially our u.s. culture. watermelon is the ONE fruit (it is a fruit, isn’t it?) that, by its very design, is communal. watermelons are meant to be shared, to be sliced up into hunks for everyone at a party. watermelons belong in parks and poolside and at the beach. to engineer a “personal watermelon” seems oxomoronic at best, and reflective of our “it’s all about me” mentality at worst. couldn’t they at least have called them “small watermelons” or something other than “personal watermelons”?
what’s next, personal church? personal marriage? personal buffets? i think i’ll go outside to my large pool behind my privacy fence, and swim by myself while i think about this.
6 comments:
...maybe the 'personal watermelon' makes the lonely single person with no friends feel like they too can eat watermelon, the traditional communal fruit....and feel happy about it. :)
i laughed - i'll admit it.
Come on, "PERSONAL WATERMELON?"
anyways, it is reflective of our society and that's just weird that they've even gotten the watermelons involved!!
it's a conspiracy i tell ya
Sorry, but I love these!! This is wonderful. Just the other day I said to my mom "I have been craving watermelon, but I really can't justify buying one unless I'm having people over or something." This is the end to my plight! Now if only they would come to a grocery store near me soon...
Please come visit Dale - bring your family - PLEASE.
Then my wife can buy a regular watermelon, and people won't have to know that we're losers who never have anyone over to share a watermelon with.
lol
there is counselling available for situation like these...
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