We walk among you, but you do not see us. We are your neighbors, but you do not know us. We work with you, but you do not respect us. We are the silent majority, the undervalued and underrepresented, the stoic and strong. We are the people who buy Red Delicious apples, and we are done living in the shadows.
We are the ghosts of the grocery store, the mythical spirits of the supermarket. You do not want to acknowledge that we exist, but we are real, and we have the power to dictate the apple economy. How else would you explain the presence of Red Delicious at every grocer across the nation, despite their disgusting flavor and penchant for bruising?
What you will never understand is that we like them that way. Their bruising is a reminder of the precious fragility of life. What, would you prefer to live in a world where apples don’t bruise? What a privileged, plasticized existence you must lead. Let me guess: You also despise potholes and shin splints.
Red Delicious reflect the truth that life is a struggle, a challenge worth overcoming. Because if you can make your way through an entire Red Delicious, you can accomplish anything.
Needless to say, we do not recognize your self-anointed status as apple authorities, with your preference for lascivious Pink Ladies, pompous Galas, utopian Honeycrisps, and globalist Fujis. We will always remain loyal to the traditional, homegrown distastefulness of the humble Red Delicious, with its flesh that manages to be both unappealingly sweet and aggressively bland.
Some have presumed that we who buy Red Delicious have no physical ability to discern texture, because how else could we tolerate its dense, bitter peel and styrofoamy flesh? To which we say, “Fair enough.”
They’re apples. They’re not supposed to “taste good” or “be edible.” They are meant to be vaguely healthy and represent a kind of old-timey, fruit-oriented moral superiority. Remember the halcyon days when kids would hand their teacher an apple before the morning bell? Always Red Delicious. And no, the teacher never ate it. But eating it was never the point. The point was the achingly nostalgic visual of a plump apple silently resting on the corner of a worn wooden desk—as God intended.
The Red Delicious looks like an apple should look—waxy and deep red—because that’s how they were bred to appear: straight out of central fruit casting. It’s a pleasant bonus when their flavor somewhat resembles the concept of what an apple might taste like.
We have heard you make fun of Red Delicious and declare that they should not exist, and that people who buy them must have no self-respect or flavor receptors. But your callous nature does not bother us, for we are thick-skinned. Not unlike our beloved apples.
Sure, they may not taste good, but at least Red Delicious are often obscenely large. It means our children are unable to eat an entire apple on their own, and we must swoop in to finish the last few slices, instilling in our kids a sense of pride in our appetites. Which you would never understand.
But today, we step out of the shadows. For we are the people who buy Red Delicious apples, and we will no longer hang our heads in sheepish shame and embarrassment. In case you’re wondering, we also buy lots of green peppers, and we are the reason most falafel are dry yet everyone just goes along with it like it’s nothing.