The Avocado is the most fickle of beings. She’s temperamental and unpredictable, to the point of cruelty. She will lead you on. She will make you fantasize. ..
Then she will shut you down. She’ll pull the rug out from under you, leaving you penniless and horny (in hunger-like kind of way, at least).
There are two typical ways she likes to play her devilish and deceitful games:
Scenario 1:
You wake up in the morning. You yawn, you groan, you starfish your body across your mattress. You rub your eyes. You eventually find the heroic strength to cast the covers away from your body.
“Comfort and warmth, be gone!” Ye exclaim with a stern and mighty howl. After managing to transition from the horizontal to vertical realm, you stagger like a battle-wounded soldier into the kitchen. Priority one, you make yourself coffee, but immediately after that, you go check in with that soon- (you hope!) to-be ripe, voluptuous avocado you have sitting in that artisan wood bowl on your counter.
“Wassup baby?” you say in a casual and disaffected tone, trying not to come off as desperate or longing, as you fondle the avocado in a precise and firm, yet tender manner, assessing its mood for consumption.
“Ok, ok, still a lil firm. That’s alright! How about tonight? I’m making some carnitas tacos. I’d love, and I mean LOVE to put your creamy insides upon them ’tillas, mixing you in with all that pork juice, and all those fixings. I’m going to perform oral consumption of you.. Has anyone ever done that to you? I bet not. I. Can. Not. Waitttt. I’ll see you tonight baby!” You bite your lip as you gaze into the soul of the Haas sticker, PLU Code 4046. “Babe, I gotta go! I know, I really wish we could do this now! I gotta go! Damn, your fine.. Stop, stop.. Ok fine! Just another minute. Ok, for real this time-goodbye, my love!” You leave, but then pop your head back in through the door. “Ooooohhh,” you purr one last time. Then you actually, finally leave, with your anticipation for tonight almost unbearably high.
Fast forward to 5:15 pm. You make it home, sweating. You’ve given your all. You left nothing on the table. You did the work, for the people. For the people! You changed lives today. And now as a reward for your good deeds, time to stuff your face with carnitas. You sniff the meat-steam misting out of your instant pot and you get one of those inexplicable full-body shivers. Your wife has already prepared the pico. You look at that big bowl of diced tomatoes, and you nod and smile. You sample the pico, so limey, so delish.
Now for your one contribution to dinner. Time to slice the avocado. You grab it from right where you said goodbye this morning, but something doesn’t feel right. You press its exterior, shocked by the firmness that meets your fingertips. You frantically spin the avocado in your hand, repeatedly pressing it in different places, hoping for one reassuring spot that will convince you it’s ripe, but of course, it is not. A heat builds inside of you. You don’t know exactly what emotion it is your feeling right now.
“Errrrrrgggggggmuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrggggggmmmuuuhhhh” you hoarsely proclaim an incomprehensible string of syllables, as all your rage and disappointment comes to the surface. You are living a true nightmare.
“Ok, ok, ok,” you whisper in a frantic pant. “It’s just an avocado, the meal will be fine without the avocado. The carnitas are super delish on their own. We has cheese. We still have the pico. We has beans. It will be fine.” You believe the story you tell yourself.
For maybe five seconds. Then you realize, you’re a liar talking some serious equestrian feculence. This is not good. Not cool at all. To put the severity of this disaster into perspective, ISIS is also not cool, but this situation with the avocado is more not cool, particularly if ISIS happened to have a ripe avocado. Which would be impressive in the arid plains of Syria. Oh, the arid plains!
This is where there is a diverging timeline in your avocado tragedy.
In scenario one, in a desperate hope to prove yourself wrong, you start telling yourself that maybe it is ripe. It just has a thick skin, you think. You press on the counter, the side of your steel fridge, the tile floor fridge, anything nearby that is quite solid. You’re seeking perspective. They’re all way firmer than the avocado. Yeah, I think its actually ripe. So you cut it.
You dumbass, why oh why did you do that?! Upon first slice, it feels like cutting through a carrot. Not what you wanted to feel. You’re in too deep now, though. You have to finish the job. You fully sever it in half. The pit cant even be seen because the unripe avocado clings to it so sturdily. A small part of you, still in denial, thinks maybe it’ll taste better than it looks, and feels, and all your common sense suggests it will. So you scoop a piece with a spoon, which requires immense effort, more strength than a ripe avocado should. You put it in your mouth. It’s like wood. Slimy wood. You shudder.
This time, just a crisp, “Fuck!”
In an alternate timeline, you have the prescience to suppress your impatient desires, and you wait for another meal. You eat those avocado-less carnitas, bitterly. But you are going to have a cream cheese bagel tomorrow morning for breakfast. With avocado.
It’s a restless sleep, but you sleep nonetheless. You rouse and do the same overly-dramatic waking routine as the day prior. Get up, you lil bitch. You enter the kitchen- today, with a bit more swagger and pep, since you know you are about to reap the benefits of your restraint.
You pick the avocado up. “Wassup ba-What the fuck?!” interjects your brain. Your avocado has turned to mush, a pile of sad, surely crappy tasting mush. How? How? How? “I left you here last night. You were firm! Firm!” pointing accusingly at the offending avocado. You pace in your kitchen, hands on your head, wincing. “Be patient,” you say mockingly to yourself, in that horribly nasally voice. “Just wait,” as you smack yourself on the forehead a couple times. You go back to the counter to interrogate the avocado. “One night, how’d you do this in one night?! There was no sun! No heat! It was cold! Why couldn’t you just sleep? I don’t even know who you are anymore!” you wimper, as you crumple to the kitchen floor.
Similar to yesterday, after a few minutes and 3 oz of salty, salty tears, a false sense of optimism set in. Sometimes avocados feel overripe, but you cut into them, and they’re actually perfect. Yeah, I bet this one is just fine. You cut it. Not fine. Super brown.
“Fleeuuhhh!Flaaa!Urrrr!Meeeee!Jimmmmm!” Another incoherent strand of noises, this time as you convulse and gurgle like an old beater car trying to start its engine. And for some reason, you sputter the name Jim at the end of it.
You sit there, back against the kitchen island, with your chocolate-brown avocado. Distraught, you’ve dug your hands messily into its rotten meat, rubbing its skin between your fingers. You hopelessly put a finger-full in your mouth. Looks like shit, tastes like shit. No crisp fucks this time. Tears, just more tears.
And then, possibly the worst thought of all. Were you ripe yesterday?? Oh god, were you actually ripe? Was it your illusory thick skin? Oh, your cruel, thick skin!
Yolo 69 420 