Many years ago, when the kids were shorter than me, I found a deal where I could get a box or two of organic fruit and veg delivered to my doorstep. We’d get exotic things, like kale, and pineapple. The children always found these boxes to be amazing, and were always willing to try something new.
At one point, we got a pomegranate. I’ll be honest, I’d never had one before, and had no clue how to open it. So I left it in the fridge, with plans on researching what to do with pomegranates on the internet – as you do.
That afternoon, my 4th grader came home – with his light blue shirt covered in purple splatter.
“Sean, what happened?”
“Well, I took the pomegranate to school, but I wasn’t sure how to open it.”
I felt sorry for the kids who sat around him at lunch. They probably went home a bit purple as well.
“Sean, new rule – you can’t bring fruit to school that you don’t know how to eat.”
I’ll admit, from that day forward, I wasn’t much into buying pomegranates. I’d buy it already scooped out, seeds in a container, if needed. But really, there’s not a lot of call for fresh pomegranate in my life, and I’m okay with that.
But yesterday…yesterday I was lured into buying them at Whole Foods. They were on sale, a twofer deal. And I knew more about how to open a pomegranate. My children were older now. It was safe.
Or so I thought.
That evening, Miriam asked if she could try one. I said “Do you know how to open it?”
“No.”
Seriously, I will never learn. So I told her to cut it open, scoop out the seeds, eat seeds. I heard the sawing of the knife, then silence, then some scraping and pounding. But it seemed okay, right? She’s fourteen, right? This is the girl who knows savvy things like how to get through airport security and how to haggle with souvenir sellers in Rome and what to do in case of a seizure. Surely my instructions were clear enough.
I was wrong.
So very wrong.
The kitchen looked like a crime scene, where a magenta corpse was dragged about. There was pomegranate splatter everywhere – counter, clean dishes on the drying board, soaking into my lovely oak farmhouse table. The girl? My sweet teen girl? Coated in pomegranate splatter. Bits of pomegranate were left between the kitchen and dining room.
“Miriam! Really? What happened?”
The reply is a bit of a bur, but there were bits of “it was tough” and “I got frustrated with it so just started stabbing at it with a spoon.”
I turned to my husband and said “You would think I’d know better by now than to buy pomegranates.”
You would think.
There’s still one left in the refrigerator. I should probably do away with it before I find it splattered all over my living room or the like.
