Do You Name Your Cantaloupes?

I don’t go indoors. Since March 11, I have not gone inside a store or salon or dance club or restaurant or, even more amazing, if you know me, a dollar store. I’m extremely cautious. I pay a shopper to get my groceries. She’s a sweetheart and shops for about 25 customers each week. She calls us, “My shut-ins.”

She’s been a shopper for several years. Before the pandemic it was just one of four jobs she had to support herself and her children. She lost the other three jobs as soon as everything shut down and has since beefed up her shopping business. She knows exactly where everything is stocked in every type of grocery store, so she’s incredibly quick. She is happy to add on other stops as well: she has picked up my prescriptions from the pharmacy twice already.

One has to learn how to be a shopee as well. Once I asked for two Dole cups of cut-up peaches (before peach season) and she bought me two packages of six cups each. I had to donate all of it, after tasting one cup. One must be very explicit. If I order broccoli, I have to write a note to specify that it be fresh, not bagged. A shopee learns slowly but surely.

And because she is shopping here, there, and everywhere all day, when she spies something that is hard to get, she grabs supplies for all her shut-ins. Early on, when disinfecting wipes were unavailable, she was in Costco when a big shipment came in and, voila!, she gifted me a box of wipes.

She’s efficient, flexible, reliable, and conscientious, but we don’t really see eye to eye on fruit and veg. It feels quite hit and miss. Last week I asked for a mini-watermelon and a cantaloupe. That was my first mistake. I should have said: small melon. Because I like all melons. She texted from the store that there were no mini-watermelons, but she could get me a pre-wrapped slice of watermelon. I asked for a photo of my choices, and she sent me one and I picked. I did not, though, think to question its size. That quarter of a watermelon was so big that it did not fit in my fridge: it was longer than the fridge is deep. I had to cut it into cubes immediately.

But it was nothing compared to the cantaloupe! The size, easily, of a basketball. The minute I saw it and struggled to lift the thing out of the bag, I texted her: “What?! I live alone. This cantaloupe could feed an affinity group for a week.” Later I sent her a photo and she LOL’d me back.

Too much cantaloupe is a problem. I’ve never heard of cantaloupe pie or cantaloupe sauce or even cantaloupe juice – not that I’ve ever baked a pie or own a juicer. One friend suggested, since I live alone and only see one person, that I make a friend out of my melon ala Tom Hanks in Cast Away with his volleyball friend Wilson. I tried developing a relationship, but the cantaloupe is insufficiently warm and fuzzy. Every name seemed insulting, from Big Head to Bulbous to Melonia. Particularly Melonia.

It is now 11 days later and I’m still consuming the cantaloupe. See the photo for the amount still remaining. I had to finish up the watermelon first – as it quickly turns to mush. But the cantaloupe just continues to hold up – bowl after bowl, mouthful after mouthful. I believe 2020 will be remembered as the year I had had enough.

Comments

[Sheila Parks]

FYI:: I do not go into stores either or any place else for that matter

I do shop at Pemberton Farms in Cambridge. I order on line and can pick up the very next day. I leave a check in my trunk for them, open the trunk and they put my food in.

I am an organic vegetarian for 40 years and they have all kinds of organic food. Definitely a miracle and a gift from the Universe

I do then have to schlep it up three flights of stairs. that is good exercise, though, and I will not use the elevator - that was always true since I moved in and certainly now with Covid.

I wish I had a Barry around.

Love your writing.

That is it for now

Do you pray at all? If so, please send some over here

Sending you wishes for lots of miracles - too many to count

Sheila

[Jane Heaney]

Ok Sue, you know I am a fan of your writing, but this one stands out for me as just about perfection. I love the melon face reference to Castaway's Wilson. And the naming - Melonia! So glad you are being well tended to by your shopper and that Melonia is about done!

[Trude]

LOL — cantaloupe juice is a thing (in Asia, at least). Good as a mixer in alcoholic drinks. You could also freeze cubes or balls, I think (since you can buy frozen cantaloupe balls). Someone gifted my daughter 5 pounds of okra from their garden, and she's been cooking imaginative okra dishes for weeks now.

[Marj]

Tickled that you are a fellow dollar store afficionada.

Maggie once asked me to bring her a canteloupe, but none of them were ripe, so I got a Galia instead. She was grumpy about it, but when she tasted that sweet, orange flesh, her eyes popped in amazement.

[Debi]

Wonderful story, Sue! I could very nearly taste each and every bite. Next time you get to much watermelon, I’m coming over!