A couple of years ago, I went to Tropica Mango and bought a Arizona Sweet orange tree as a Christmas present for my husband. We planted it. We fertilized it at the proper times. We watered it. The first year, I dutifully picked off all of the blossoms. More water. More fertilizer. The second year, we let it set a few fruit. I painted over the tear when a branch with three oranges on was ripped off during a windstorm. I covered it when we got a hard freeze this year. I worried when it got nipped by cold in spite of my best efforts.
Then, came the day I had dreamed of for years. My oranges were ripe. They were a bit large for an orange, but not freakishly so, given that they were the only two oranges on the tree. I sat down, and started to peel the first one. The skin was a bit thick, as I'd expected. Then, freed from its skin, I beheld the naked orange. I split it in half, ready to pull off a section. I noticed that it was pink. This was.....not what I'd expected. I thought, clinging desperately to hope "Maybe its one of those fancy Cara-Cara navels". I separated a small section, raised it to my mouth, and bit down. My orange tree is a grapefruit. A juicy, tasty, pink grapefruit, but still a grapefruit.
There is, I have no doubt, some deep and profound lesson about life to be learned from this experience. And I will learn it. Once I get finished being totally and completely vexed. Because grapefruit.
