overly ripe
If you are looking for a university to attend and are concerned about your ability to get fruit while living on campus, do not even look at Virginia Tech. An instructor of mine who went to Ohio State, then worked at some other universities, and eventually came here told my class how horrendous the fruit selection is here.
I wasn’t tipped off to this until just over a year ago when my friend, Jon, transferred here. He frequently mentioned both the crappy quality of the available fruit and also the uncommonly short selection. Since I haven’t dined at other campuses in America, I wasn’t aware our fruit selection was this pitiful. Lately, though, my stomach has been craving more fruit so I’ve noticed this atrocity quite clearly. I made a small meal out of fruit once, paying by the pound, and the cost was extremely high. The quality of it certainly wasn’t extraordinarily wonderful to justify that cost.
I needed a banana (and coffee) today before a long afternoon/evening/night of studying, so I went to ABP on campus to hit the two birds with one swipe of my Hokie passport. After I made my specific coffee drink - I discovered a way to combine some of their hideous coffees so as to now choke it down - I checked out the bananas. Easily, 90% of them deserved some sort of sympathy; black spots all over, clear and visible bruises, munchkin bananas. Then I noticed that they were 80 cents a piece. I grabbed the alpha banana and went to check out.
I put my items on the counter to reach for my card and the cashier guy read out my items, “fruit and a large coffee,” hitting the register buttons as he went. I corrected him in a neutral tone, “it’s a medium coffee,” as I handed him my card. I caught his gaze right after that, staring at me with what appeared to be a form of hatred. Then, without moving his eyes from mine, he hit the total button, certainly without correcting my coffee size.
To lighten the mood, I dropped the stare-down and tried to humorously say, “I’d wager most of that fruit is not fresh,” referencing the “Fresh Fruit 80 cents” sign. Immediately, he snapped back ready to break down the issue semantically, based on my definition of ripeness and freshness. I would have stood there for a few minutes, I expect, had I not listened to a few lines of his monologue and then walked away.
It takes only one bad apple to ruin the whole bunch. At least the banana was satisfactory. And the coffee is ok, too.