Every time I eat a grapefruit I think of this:
I was about nine months pregnant, and working as a paraprofessional at a local high school. My belly was huge and pointy, like I was housing a rocket ship, and my ankles swelled to three times their normal size by lunch time. Walking was a chore, and I took any chance I could to work sitting down and with my feet up. On this particular day, I had already fielded three or four comments of concern in the halls. By this point in my pregnancy, colleagues regularly asked me if I was okay (I was perfectly fine), which meant that I must have looked particularly not okay. I was incredibly relieved each day by the time I made it to my half hour lunch.
Today, I was sitting alone, but there were five or six other staff members sitting at tables nearby, chatting and scarfing down their soggy meals. The faculty room was a joyless concrete space that smelled of microwaved leftovers, with windows high up in the wall so you couldn’t see out of them. I was eating a grapefruit (in my third trimester I ate an insane amount of fruit for some reason). Now, I don’t know how everyone else eats a grapefruit, but I have always cut it in half, loosened between each slice with a knife, sprinkled it lightly with sugar, and then eaten it with a spoon, one triangular piece at a time.
There I was, minding my own business eating my grapefruit, and in walks the Biology teacher. This guy was an eco-warrior, long-haired hippie who rode a bike to school, didn’t use deodorant, and wore the same outfit nearly every day; a tie dyed shirt featuring lightning bolts and wolves, a pair of baggy, olive green cargo pants, and Birkenstocks… with socks. Now don’t get me wrong - I have never had a problem with tree-huggers and I don't judge others based on appearance. On the contrary, I am often considered to be a huge hippie, myself. I recycle, reuse, and re-purpose with the best of them, grow my own vegetables, wear thrift store clothes, and raise chickens. But this guy was the holier-than-thou type of hippie who, no matter what you were doing, he knew a better way to do it, and he had no problem shaming people by pointing out their faults. He carried himself with the confidence and comfortable audacity of a man who is sure that he is solely responsible for saving the world, one composted tea bag at a time.
He stopped dead in his tracks in front of my table, chuckled, and said “Awww, I remember when I used to eat grapefruits like that!” This, in the voice of someone who is looking down on a small child with extreme condescension. “Now, I just peel it and eat it like an orange. So much of the fruit is wasted when you eat it like that. I never put sugar on it, either, I think it spoils the natural flavor.”
His tone of voice said “how cute.” As in, “look at this poor, ignorant soul, eating her grapefruit the wrong way.” I was embarrassed. I was young, I was pregnant, I was a para and he was a teacher, and I was tired and caught off guard. I smiled and murmured something that sounded self-depreciating and looked at the table in front of me as he went about the business of heating up his quinoa (I’m shocked he used the microwave instead of starting a primitive fire with two sticks to heat up his organic hand-picked grains). He left and I finished my last few bites with my cheeks burning.
And now, nearly fifteen years later, every single time I cut into a grapefruit (yes, I still cut them my way- fuck him) I think about that man and what he said and how he said it, and I feel angry. I imagine all the things that I should have said back to him. I wish I could have looked him dead in the eye with a flat affect and said “that’s because you’re better than me.” I wish I could have said that and then sat there just looking at him with a serious calm coldness until he felt embarrassed. I wish everyone in the lunch room would have heard me and agreed with me that he was a jackass. I wish he had slunk out of that lunch room feeling like a jerk.
Instead, he left the faculty room with his nice, warm lunch and his arrogance and his confidence intact and never thought about that interaction ever again. And I am a full-grown woman with a family and a career and a mortgage who still feels angry every time she slices into a grapefruit.
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"Be mindful when it comes to your words. A string of some that don't mean much to you, may stick with someone else for a lifetime."
-Rachel Wolchin
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