I have a great story to tell you. Well, I don’t know if it is that great because it is a very serious subject. But today I got such a meaningful affirmation, a perfect fit for a story.

A year ago, more precisely in September 2009, I grabbed an apple out of a bowl on the service desk of a hotel  In New York to have something to eat on my way to the airport. I was hungry but for some reason the shiny dark red apple didn’t attract me. It was perfectly shaped, as every other apple in that bowl, almost looking like clones. No apple was shaped bigger or different than the other. So I put it away in my purse ‘for later’.

When I got home and unpacked, I found the apple, looked at it and put it on my kitchen counter ‘for later.’ After a week it was still just as shiny and showing off its beauty. I am so disappointed now that I didn’t take a picture of it, made a study of it. But who could have suspected that…

…this  very same apple was still staring me in the face a few weeks later. My fruit bowl had been filled up and eaten several times and I had to throw out a rotting apple from time to time. But no sir, not my apple from the Big Apple. It was standing up against time, beating coming and going fruits and facing my amazed looks with pride. Sometimes I would take the apple, push it a little to feel if something was happening inside but nope. Nothing happening there either, not one spot or imperfection, everything as firm as freshly picked fruit.

This apple became the center of my growing stupefaction. I even talked to it, encouraging it to start rotting. Or asking it how long it would stay this stubborn. Nope, it didn’t rot. It didn’t start moving, no maggot interested in its red cheeks, the fruit flies who were attacking my fruit bowl in summer flew around it. I didn’t even have to store it in the refrigerator. Amazing! I was intrigued! But after a while I started forgetting from time to time. A few months later I found it back, pushed away and lost in the back of my counter. And guess what! It was just as fresh and shiny as the first day I took it!

Now THAT drew my attention! I put it on a spot I could keep an eye on it. Just in case. No need. It was the perfect apple. You could keep it for months. What am I saying? For… no not yet.

I kinda started loving my apple. I got attached to it. It was a subject for discussion with a friend who was just amazed as I was. But I also got very happy I didn’t eat this apple. What was on there? Or no, what was IN there?  What happens to all the people who are eating a few of those every day? Will they be conserved just as well? Or will they… I should have then taken it to a lab and have it investigated. I didn’t think of it then. I do now.

My Big Apple fading after one year!

Halfway September  I looked at my apple. It was its birthday; Happy Birthday Big Apple. You are one year old and you look so much younger, only like a day or so! Still not one spot, a perfectly firm shaped body, no bumps, no cellulite, no nothing.

We are now October 14. Last week I looked at my apple and saw something was happening. Oh no! My apple! It started to wrinkle, it got a little bump and it started to feel soft. I was moved. I told my friend. We looked at my apple in silence. I took a picture and said; “I have to write about my apple”. After all this time together…

Today I felt the end is near. All of a sudden it is soft, bruised, dented, still standing out, but fading. My poor apple. I put it on a place where I can watch  it closely.  I must be cruel, watching it die slowly. But I can hardly imagine my intriguing, beautiful, poisoned apple will be gone soon now.

Happy Birhday To My Big Apple!

Something else happened today. I got a message from my friend; “You will laugh at this, but read the Huffington Post…” You can too, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/13/mcdonalds-happy-meal-photos-6-months_n_761364.html

The title of the article; “McDonald’s Happy Meal Unchanged After 6 Months.”