orange

We do not buy oranges on a regular basis at our house. I love oranges, I crave oranges.
It's because, here in northern-most Ohio, we do not always have such great prices for oranges. I just refuse to pay big dollars for a couple smallish size oranges--and try to feed a family of five on said oranges and have happy results. I know, you're saying, "Back in "Little Women" times they got an orange (yes that's 1 orange) for the year, given as a Christmas gift, and they were happy as larks.

Let me continue.
When we do have oranges available at a price that doesn't make one think, "Ok we can get oranges AND have electricity this week." (somewhat slight exaggeration for effect), they are usually a disappointment in flavor or texture.There. That's my rant for today.

At those times I bring to mind the saying, You get what you pay for, and wonder if those expensive oranges would at least reward us with better taste/texture .
In orange growing areas of the country there may be some quiet snickering, with hand over mouth.... It's ok. I know you're doing it... you can take your hand away and snicker right out in the open. When you live near The Great Lakes, you get all the Lake Perch and Walleye you want but no oranges.


Then one magical day I came home with a bag of oranges on sale at a great price. A bag, not just a single sample of one orange piece of fruit!  There was practically a line out the door and around the store, with people threatening bodily harm to one another at the
bag- of- oranges- at- a- great- price display area!!
Wait!
Hold the phone! (Does anyone ever say that any more? Maybe now it's, hold the iphone, or hold the Bluetooth.)
Ohhhh, I get it now....these are going to be the kind of oranges that look yummy and tempting and make you feel like you got the deal of the century but you cut into them, taste them and have buyer regret, no matter how cheap (sorry) inexpensive they were.

I'm here to tell ya, THEY WERE SOME OF THE BEST TASTING, JUICY ORANGES
I have had in a long while.
N. had been begging to make homemade squeezed orange juice with his great grandma's low tech kitchen gadget.
I let him.
He used all but 2 of those fab oranges.

Guess what? He put the juice away in the fridge... and promptly dumped it all over the floor the next time he opened the fridge door, and before anyone could drink any. We were both in the kitchen when it happened as if in slow motion, like some great movie special effect.
The whole time we were cleaning up the sticky mess, I was thinking, "I wish I was the kind of housekeeper--you know the kind--- where you could eat off the floor!"