Square watermelons and Homer Simpson immortalized


June 19, 2001

While you were paying attention to "important" news last week such as the Bush-Putin summit, the special session of the Nevada Legislature and the start of the Reno Rodeo, you probably missed several crucial news items that -- unlike Bush-Putin, the Legislature or the Rodeo -- may actually touch your life, probably in an inappropriate manner.

The first news item comes from Oxford, England, where you will be surprised to learn that they make the Oxford English Dictionary. Here is a quote from that news item, which was posted on CNN.com:

A rich and colorful language that has developed over many centuries and which is now spoken by half the planet has a new word -- Doh! ... "Doh" is now an official word of the English language, along with about 250 new entries.

When I saw this news item, one thought immediately popped into my head: Oxford's culture has obviously not yet recovered from the time that Bill Clinton spent there as a student long ago.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it's kind of horrifying that the beautiful English language, which Chaucer and Shakespeare and Yogi Berra once used, is now being permanently altered by a television show that also brought us the phrase "eat my shorts." On the other hand, it's cool to think in the year 3071, people will still be yelling "Doh!" as they are slowly devoured by unfriendly life forms on new planets they are exploring.

Um ... the example aside, you get my point.

While I may have mixed feelings about this whole "Doh!" thing, I am very one-sided regarding my feelings on another topic: square watermelons.

I couldn't make up such an abomination if I tried. Here's a quote from a news item, also from CNN.com:

Farmers in the southern Japanese town of Zentsuji have figured out how to grow their watermelons so they turn out square ... farmers insert the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine.

I know some of you out there are thinking: Jeez, Jimmy Boegle has way too much time on his hands to find this crap on CNN.com. But you are wrong, you weenie; people who work for me actually found these news items and told me about them, so neener neener.

I also know you are thinking: "Square watermelons? What is the big deal?" Well, I promise that if you go and see the picture of these things on CNN.com, Mr./Ms. Smarty Pants, you will freak out and become adamantly opposed to this. As my co-worker, Adrienne, said: "It makes your head hurt." The human brain is not meant to see perfectly square watermelons, pure and simple. They just look, well, WRONG, kind of like Tony Armstrong would look wearing black thong underwear.

Um ... the example aside again, you get my point.

They look like watermelons, all right, with the two shades of green and stripes and everything. But it looks like they have been mated with a square ottoman. The story says these watermelons were developed because space in refrigerators in Japan is scarce. Really.

That is disturbing. But so is this:

Each square watermelon costs 10,000 yen, the equivalent of about $82. Regular watermelons in Japan cost from $15 to $25 each. At $82 apiece, [Samantha] Winters [of the National Watermelon Promotion Board in Orlando, Fla.] said she didn't know if there would be a market for square-grown watermelons in the United States. "I think that's a pretty expensive watermelon," she said. "Maybe they give them as gifts. Maybe it says something for the gift-fruit market, perhaps."

I have several critical questions about this. People are spending $82 for watermelons? There is such a thing as the National Watermelon Promotion Board? And what in the HELL is the gift-fruit market? Finally: Will the phrase "gift-fruit market" ever make the Oxford English Dictionary?

Wow. This is all making my head hurt.

Doh!

Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who anxiously awaits the day that scientists develop the square rutabaga. His (Jimmy's, not the square rutabaga's) column appears here Tuesdays, and a column archive may be viewed at jimmyboegle.com.

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