October 16, 2006

ipples

I went apple picking this weekend. When you live in the great northeast, this is something people do once a year. Yes, there are farmer's markets all over the city selling freshly picked apples, but I'd rather drive for two hours and pick the damn things myself. Because it just doesn't feel like fall until I've wrapped my meat hooks around a firm piece of unplucked fruit. Wow, that really sounded like something a child molester would say.

But the problem with apple picking is that by the time you get home with your huge bag 'o apples, you're so fucking sick of apples that you never want to see one for the rest of your life. Here's a summary of every single day I've ever had, or will have, at an apple orchard:

1. I pull up to the orchard and hop out of my car. I immediately flair my nostrils and take in a deep breath of the farm air and say, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, smell those fresh apples!"

2. At the gate to the farm I see two teenaged daughters of the orchard farmer giving out free samples of hot apple cider. Not being able to resist their charms I get a cup. I drink it. I proclaim that it's the most delicious hot liquid my belly has ever had the pleasure of receiving. The girls, in unison, say, "Well, why don't you buy some to take home?"

I buy two gallons, one for each fist.

3. I return to my car to put the jugs in my trunk.

4. I go back to the farm and this time I see some old ladies selling hot apple cider donuts. The smell is too much for me to resist, so I buy one and eat it in one bite. I proclaim that it's the best hot dough my throat has ever had the pleasure of transporting. The old ladies, in unison, say, "Why don't you buy some to take home?"

I buy 2 dozen.

5. I return to the car to put the donuts in the trunk next to cider. I eat three more donuts and chase them down with a gulp of cider before going back to the farm.

6. I go to the apple bag counter, which is run by a little girl, to get my official apple bag. The first bag she gives me is the size of a grocery bag, and I laugh in the little girl's face. No, no, no, I say. I'm a man. Give me a big boy bag. She hands me a bag the size of a trash bag and I enter the orchard skipping like a little girl.

7. I grab the first apple I see on a tree and bite into it as loudly as possible. The sound echoes around the orchard. I proclaim that it's the freshest piece of fruit my tongue has ever had the pleasure of tasting. Like a madman I start shoving apples into my bag as if they're made of gold. I soon have an entire bushel's worth of apples in my bag. I'm forced to carry the bag around like Santa Claus.

8. As I move from tree to tree, I keep taking single bites out of apples and then throwing them to the ground in disgust. I only want the joy of that first, pure bite. Kind of like a first date or first kiss. Long-term apple relationships no longer do it for me when I'm in an orchard. There are far too many options. In the process, I'm pissing off all the brokenhearted apples I've left behind.

9. The apple bites quickly add up and within 5 minutes I've eaten the equivilant of twenty-six apples.

10. I stop by the Port-o-Potty and my colon explodes from all the fiber. I proclaim that my colon has never been this healthy before. The man outside waiting to use the bathroom tells me to hurry the fuck up.

11. The Port-o-Potty is right next to the bakery, so I stop in. Right away I see an old man giving out samples of the orchard's own hard apple cider. Being a fan of all things alcoholic, I taste it. I proclaim that it's the most amazing alcoholic beverege my liver has ever had the pleasure of getting cirrhosis from. Meanwhile, I'm silently cursing myself for buying that lame nonalcoholic cider earlier. To make up for it, I buy an entire case of the hard cider.

12. While paying for the cider, I see a bunch of apple pies on the counter. The sign reads: Freshly made! I look at the pies and realize I could never hope to make a pie that looks that damn good. I buy two pies for the sole reason that one has walnuts and the other doesn't.

13. I almost throw my back out carrying the bushel of apples, the pies, and the case of hard cider to my car. Once I get everything into the trunk, my car looks like a low rider from the added apple weight.

14. I drive home, chugging cider out of the jug and eating apples and apple donuts by the fistfull, all the way from upstate New York to Brooklyn. By the time I hit the Lincoln Tunnel, the 10 pounds of apple mush in my stomach is fermenting. By the time I finally park my car and roll out onto the street, I look like this:

When I got home, and spread out eveything I bought on the counter, my kitchen suddenly looked like a country store. I tried putting all of the apples into the fruit drawer of my fridge, but they didn't fit. Not by a longshot. It's at this time that I realized that a full bushel of apples is an insane amount of apples. It's more apples than most of us eat over the course of an entire lifetime.

So I spent all day yesterday trying to think of ways to get rid of a few hundred apples. The only thing I could think of was trying to get my cat to eat them. Using an exacto knife and a goldfish cracker as my guide, I cut an apple into tiny fish-shaped pieces. It took me about three hours to do one apple. Then I put the pieces into my cat's food dish. When he saw me put his food bowl down my cat came running over, took one look at the apple fishies, and then gave me the "you fucking asshole" look.

So that didn't work. I'm stuck with all these goddamn apples. Just like I'm stuck with going through this same thing all over again next fall. Why? Because I'm a sucker for traditions. And because I'm a moron.

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