CHERRIES

This Monday my sister and her fiancee were nice enough to drop by my place to give me a nice big bag of cherries. They were of high quality variety, crisp, and dark enough to be almost black. While cherries are delicious, I can honestly admit they are not my favourite fruit. The reason for this was probably ingrained in me when I was a kid.

In the mid to late 1980s, my aunt and uncle drove to Vancouver from Calgary (where they were visiting from Montreal), to visit my family. They had a huge family compared ours. We were a typical nuclear family whereas they had six kids, one dude and five girls, three of which were identical triplets. I forget if all the kids came along but I’m sure that the triplets plus two others were there. Somehow, it was decided that my sister and I would tag along with them on the drive back to Calgary.

It was cramped in that station wagon. Anyways, we were somewhere in the Okanagan when either my aunt or uncle wanted to stop to buy some fresh cherries from a local orchard. We got underway shortly thereafter. I remember I was sitting in one of the back benches next to one of the triplets, I forget who. Anyways, she was eating the cherries with vigour when she suddenly stopped. All I remember next is that she blurted out to her mom, my aunt, that she was gonna hurl. It was at this point I started to panic because I was strapped into place with my seatbelt and she was in the same predicament I was in. It a scene straight out of The Thing where MacReady is testing everyone’s blood. My aunt was quick to hand back to my cousin a semi-transparent Tupperware container. She grabbed it and then puked into it. I looked away while the worst was happening.

Like an accident you can’t look away from though, I turned back to look at the aftermath. I saw the container that now held my cousin’s vomit. It was this mess of red, semi-liquid cherry hurl, mixed in with whatever she had eaten earlier. As the car went over bumps in the road, the vomit would move back and forth in the container in a manner not all too pleasing. The sight of all this almost made me wanna puke too but I had seen The Goonies already and I didn’t want to make Chunk’s story come true.

Somehow I held it together. The rest of the trip was uneventful, except for when the dog peed on the sandwiches but that’s another story. Anyways, the sight of cherry vomit never left me. It made quite an impression on my young mind. I tend to like most fruits. I love mangoes, strawberries, nectarines, blueberries, and the list goes on. I will tell you this though, I have yet to buy cherries on my own accord. Coincidence? I don’t think so.