The Debate

So I stood there in the grocery store, staring at the apples. There wasn’t much of anything to these apples, but I stood there nonetheless.

For some unknown reason I couldn’t decide whether to buy these apples or not. They looked nice enough: all red and shiny, covered in that mist they spray on produce so it stays rainforestly fresh. The price wasn’t bad either. I reckon I was lucky enough to have stumbled upon such a wonderful bargain of juicy, delicious red apples for something-or-other per pound.

But I couldn’t decide.

There’s no reason I couldn’t, either. Well, I take that back. There was a reason but it was one of those reasons where it is a reason but not really a reason you want to go on elaborating to people for the simple reason that to the rest of the world it probably doesn’t seem to be a reason.

It all started on a bright gloomy day, one of those days where the sun is diffused through the clouds so it seems like one of those big Hollywood marquee skylights is being pointed at you from all three-hundred sixty six degrees. Naturally I had to get the newspaper to fetch some savingsful coupons that were entrenched within the newspaper’s papery labyrinth. I dawned my anti-sun glasses and made the twenty-foot trek to the designated spot the newspaper boy throws the newspaper when he aims for the designated spot the newspaper boy should have thrown the newspaper to, which, inconsequentially, is about seven feet away.

I acquired the paper roll and brought it back into the house, my protective eye gear almost melting. Almost of course. I wouldn’t have much of a story if I had gone blind then and there.

I began to leaf through all of the coupons. I leafed because, as you know, a sophisticated gentleman (that I sometimes am) is above browsing or looking through the coupons. Eventually I got to the grocery coupons, but not before quickly skimming the electronics that I’ll never afford and the woman’s lingerie that hopefully I’ll never wear.

I might have lied. I think I went somewhat more slowly through the latter section.

Nevertheless the coupons presented me with the usual how-do-you-do’s (I’m doing fine, by the way) with the common milk deals, get 1 pretzel bag free when you buy two similar items that you will probably save for the next movie night, and other assorted bundles of penny pinching that I meticulously cut out and carefully organized for my next excursion to the grocery store.

Okay okay, I lied again. I tore them out pretty recklessly and put them into a semi-organized pile that I will sort through later. Who actually takes the time to cut right on the black line as if if they didn’t some coupon FBI would come in and beat them with night sticks built out of papier-mâché’d bits and pieces of coupon scraps people threw away?

Well, I shouldn’t be that sardonic. I’m sure there are some that do…but really? C’mon.

Anyways, I had most of the coupons cut out and ready to use when I saw something odd: a new grocery store, offering new coupons, with a new special deal on, what do you know: apples. Now, I know what you’re going to say, I already have a bunch of coupons for a store I should probably go to, why go to a completely new place just for apples? They’re just apples after all right?

Wrong.

These apples were different. Their presentation ringed with an unsound beauty that I had never been privileged to see before. You just know when something special hits you, and this was it. It was a moment buried in time, waiting to spring up at the right moment. I wouldn’t even have seen it if it weren’t for my pet goldfish spilling some water on the page that was on top of the page that held these apple coupons.

I really can’t even begin to describe the pure power evoked by these apples. Another lie, I can. The pictures, oh the pictures, just ringed with pure produce beauty. But pictures are nothing without the text. The way each line just jumped out to me, to me personally, was amazing. It said exactly what I wanted to say, shone exactly how I wanted my apples to shine. I don’t think I could design a better apple if I wanted to.

Suffice it to say that these apples were something worth going after.

But, you quiz, how do you know the words aren’t lying? You haven’t even tasted the apple! Oh but my friends how foolish you may sometimes be with logic. There is no rationality in fruit, no passion mixed with the linear equations of our mind. It is pure feeling. You do not need to visit a Caribbean beach to know you want to see its landscape of sparkling blue water, its long flowing white sand topped with a sky just touched by a small whisper of white cloud. You do not need to see the food to know the smell permeating your inner being is from the best of well cooked lasagna. Feelings transcend these petty human senses. You know a good thing when you feel it. No logic on earth will ever top that.

So I planned to go to fetch these new apples. But…there was a problem.

30 minutes of problems.

The grocery store, that which carried such succulent apples, was on the other side of town, through hellbent traffic and long endless roads.

It was like a dagger had stabbed my soul. An hour trip is a long ways to travel. Sure I could drive there just once and get a taste of perfection, but doing so every week is a bit of a stretch. There are some things that just have to be done before we can enjoy apples, so we can sustain life.

I suddenly fell into an entrapment of blazing thoughts terrorizing my mind like a flock of birds heading south circling the same vacant parking lot over and over again. Maybe they’d open a store close by, but that’d take a long time. Maybe eventually I’d move to the other side of town, it is nice over there, good cost of living. Maybe I’d go only a few times a month? Something could be done, surely.

And surely something can be done about this situation. I could go, it’s not that bad. But after that euphoric decisiveness wears off, the logic engrained by our rule-stricken society starts to creep in, and so begins the debate.

What to do?

Go, have fun, but at what cost? The logistics about it are indeed baffling. It’d cost some, but why the hell not, it’s not like I will ever have enough money saved up for my precious HD plasma. It’s not even that much in reality.

So I stood there. I stood there staring at the apples I had bought time and time again. Every week I came in and got the same pair. They were good, no doubt, and close, convenient, always right there when you needed them. They gave you your full, satisfied you, gave you some joy along the way but … something … something was off.

There were better ones. Now I knew it. No longer did I lay blissfully ignorant, fooled by the contentedness caused by the apples I had always known. I caught myself wondering about them, thinking about them, distracted by the images ravishing my thoughts. I couldn’t look at another apple without thinking about the ones I knew. I didn’t want to be content; I didn’t want to be satisfied: I wanted the best.

And so I stood. Stood and stood and stood and stood again, stood there for seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, even years. People never seemed to notice me just standing there, looking at the apples. They never saw what was going on in my head.

But realistically, of course, there is a time limit. Something was going to be decided or I was going to be hauled off by the newly hired 17 year old who just got his first job cleaning the floors and collecting carts, the 17 year old who just wanted to go home.

And so I made a decision. It happens eventually. Like I said, it has to. You have to do something otherwise you get nothing. Even I, the man enthralled in an infinite debate over apples knew this truth.

I walked to the counter, said the usual pleasantries to the woman behind the register, and put my items on the conveyer belt. The woman began to go item by item, shining each one in a big red light and putting them in a bag. I gave her a rectangle of plastic, she swiped it, I left. The items went in the backseat and I, as usual, went in the driver’s seat.

I started the car, and drove out.

You then ask, what did I do? I could maliciously answer that I just told you what I did, but I am no tortuous story teller.

I didn’t buy the apples.

Well at least, not those apples.

I went home, unloaded my groceries, and got back in the car.

I went to the southbound freeway and headed to the new store, for those apples.

Why?

Because it’s worth it. Because even if I can’t get there all the time, even if it’s not always easy, it’s worth more than being content with the way things are will ever be.