Biting a Peach
Right where I entered Trader Joe’s today, bins of peaches, nectarines, and plums beckoned. I’ve been fooled in the past by luscious-looking stone fruit, only to get home and, with one bite, learn that it’s mealy inside.
So I’ve taken to biting into a peach before loading a produce bag with more of them. After I bit into the peach, I turned to the tall, black man in khakis and a light blue polo shirt next to me and said, “It’s pretty good.”
He asked me whether I was going to pay for it. I told him yes, but when it’s not good, I just throw it away—a fair exchange, considering all the mealy fruit I have paid for and then thrown away at home.
It occurred to me afterwards that biting into a peach at Trader Joe’s and then throwing it away is a freedom I have as a white person, no less one with gray hair and a Medicare card in her fanny pack.
What freedoms or lack of freedoms do you have, compared to others? It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I miss hearing from you!
Check out my books:
Still Standing: How an Ex-Con Found Salvation in the Floodwaters of Katrina
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