Grapefruit Confessions

You’re sitting at your desk, eating a perfectly delicious red grapefruit. You don’t normally eat grapefruit. Especially not at work. But 2011 is the year you’ll finally get fit and stay fit, and so all your snacks of CheezIts and chocolate are replaced by apples and green peppers. And grapefruit.

You’ve sliced it in half and set the halves before you. Carefully-placed slits free each fruit section from the rind. Generously-sprinkled Splenda sweetens their tartness. And yet, you laugh to yourself as the red fruit puckers your lips and squints your eyes.

First one half, then other. Piece by piece, you polish it off, knowing full well that co-workers may find you strange for choosing such an odd snack. They eye you from across the open room or walk past your desk, and you can almost hear their inner dialog about you and your grapefruit.

Or maybe, you’re just being paranoid.

Once empty of their ruby fruit, the grapefruit halves sit before you, full of juice. Wonderful, tangy, healthy juice that would be drunk within the minute if you were in the privacy of your own home.

But you aren’t home. You’re at work, in a room with no barriers or blockades or cubicles. And your coworkers might see you.

What do you do? Do you drink the juice or throw it away?

Do you remain true to your quirky self or do you follow social convention?

After a moment of deliberation and a glance over your shoulder, you drink. And it tastes lovely. Once you’ve wiped your mouth, you sit back and think about how excited you are that you have another grapefruit for tomorrow.

And how lucky your coworkers are that you had the office sense to squeeze the juice into a cup instead of sucking it straight out of the fruit’s shell like some kind of crazy person.