“I’m getting fat”, I thought. I can feel my skin tightening around my belly, chest, and lower body. But I can’t pinch an inch because I have no arms. No legs. No face. No mouth.
It’s the 4th of July. This weight that I notice? It’s all water weight. How do I know? Because I’m a watermelon.
Until a few days ago I was living in a field in Hermiston, OR. Hermiston is about halfway between Portland and Boise and hosts some of the largest melon farms around. I’m now in a box sitting in front of the Winco in Beaverton, surrounded by boxes of other watermelons. Some I remember as neighbors, or friends. I think “Hey Sally. Hi Mike”. But they don’t answer. Watermelons are like reindeer. They can’t talk.
A small boy, maybe 7 or 8, comes to pick me up. He struggles to lift me and he carries me into the store. He can’t even put me into a shopping cart, because he’s too short to lift me over the sides of the cart. He struggles under our combined weight (I’m hard to carry because I’m mostly round. Watermelons don’t have handles) and tries to get me up to the counter at Cashier 8. I think the cashier’s name tag says Fiona. Anyway, he can’t lift me that high and a nice man next in line helps lift me up onto the counter.
I’m now on the counter at the register and the boy reaches up to lay a quarter, nickel, and 3 pennies on the counter. 33 cents.
Fiona weighs me and I’m 16.5 lbs. Wow. I did put on some weight!
“That will be $5.45”. Fiona says.
“The sign out front says 33 cents”, the boy says.
“I’m sorry. That’s the price per pound. This melon is 16.5 pounds. You picked a big one”, Fiona says.
I see the boy begin to tear up with puddles forming in his eyes and rivulets just beginning to flow down his face.
“That’s all I have”, the boy says.
I’m thinking. Oh no! I don’t want to go back to the box outside! It’s nice and air conditioned in here.
The nice man that helped lift me onto the counter reaches into his wallet, pulls out a $5 dollar bill along with a handful of change, hands it to Fiona and says to the boy, “I gotcha covered, son. Enjoy your holiday”.
He picks me up off the counter, hands me to the boy, and the boy waddles out the door with both of us.
“Thanks, mister”, the boy says.