I don’t like strawberry anything, except strawberries. That is, I like strawberries. I like their color. I like their texture. I like their taste. But I don’t like strawberry stuff. I don’t like strawberry pie. I don’t like strawberry jam, and it’s always strawberry jam, isn’t it? I don’t even like Strawberry Fun Dip and I love Fun Dip. Hhm? Something not entirely completely different, I’ve got to get me some Popeye Cigarettes. Tasty.

I don’t really like banana anything including bananas — they’re just so fibrous. With one exception. I like banana bread. I love the way banana bread smells mostly and I eat it only so that I can smell it. I love kiwi. Ugly and stupid on the outside but so vibrant, so tart, so tasty on the inside. Sometimes, if I were a fruit, I think I’d be a kiwi.

I like orange-flavored things, typically, but I don’t really go in for oranges. I like orange chocolate. I like orange chicken. But oranges themselves, they’re just too difficult and messy to get at. I like them well enough at Chinese restaurants where they’re cut and opened and peeled for my eating pleasure. None of that hacking and peeling and eye-squirting messiness. Apples are too boring to like but I still like green apples.

Besides kiwi and the smell of banana bread, I love cranberries, raspberries, blackberries, and rhubarb. I’m not yet altogether sure what boysenberry is but I love to say boysenberry. Boysenberry, boysenberry, boysenberry. Poison berry? Boys ‘n berry? Boys send berries? Poison bury? Boy Zen berry? Such fun sounds.

SS