At 10:02 on a Sunday morning, Norman walks into the local grocery store to stock up on TV dinners, food for Norman, and a new bag of his daily office snack, Mandarins. When he reaches the fruit section however, he learns that Mandarins are no longer in season and won't be available for the next few months. Norman thinks for a moment about how the farmers and orchard owners in Spain, where the last bag was from according to the sticker, must be glad to have a few months off work. After daydreaming for about fifteen minutes about what it would be like to be a Spanish orange farmer, Norman decides to go back to his old ways and just get a bag of plain old oranges. He spends another five minutes or so looking for a bag full of oranges that all seem ripe, but not too ripe so that they'll last a while in his refrigerator at home. He selects a bag which is a pretty red color that he didn't remember seeing before. "Perhaps it is a new brand," he thinks to himself while standing in the checkout line. It is only just before he reaches the register however, that he realizes that what he holds in his hand is a bag of blood oranges. Norman has never heard of a blood orange before and doesn't exactly wish to try them now, but as the cashier's voice snaps him out of his thoughts, he realizes that it is far too late to put them back. They cost 22 cents more than regular oranges.
The next day, being almost late for work after his alarm failed to go off (though he was thankfully woken by Norman jumping up on his bed in order to lead him to his empty food bowl) Norman hurriedly grabbed an orange from the bag, not remembering that it was a different kind of orange until precisely 10:30 am when he began to peel it. "I suppose this is why they call it a blood orange," Norman muses slightly aloud as he notes the ruby red color of the fruit, remembering yesterday's escapade at the grocery store as he does. Figuring he may as well at least eat this one so as not to waste the whole bag, Norman finds himself pleasantly surprised at the tart, yet mild flavor which is more robust than a normal orange. Norman even goes so far as to imagine himself having a lengthy conversation about blood oranges with Lisa, who in his thoughts is quite impressed with how discerning he is in his citrus tastes. He did not see Lisa that day, but figures that a conversation of that nature may happen since she seemed interested in Mandarins earlier.
A week later, Norman never did manage to talk about blood oranges with Lisa, but has grown quite fond of them and resolves to buy another bag, theorizing a possible yearly routine of buying Mandarins when they are in season and blood oranges when they aren't. As he nears the fruit section his thoughts return to reality as he searches for the blood oranges. After nearly twenty minutes of searching the whole fruit section of the store multiple times, he finds none of the distinctive pretty red bags. After an additional ten minutes spent waiting for a nearby store employee to finish restocking grapefruits Norman learns, to his slight dismay, that blood oranges are now also out of season. With a bag of ordinary navel oranges in his hand, Norman slowly walks to the cashier, thinking about how orange farmers in Italy must also enjoy their vacations.
Submitted October 30, 2015 at 06:13PM by PirateVikingNinja http://ift.tt/1KKhqnN lifeofnorman
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