June 18, 2020: The box boldly stated

Grade A Extra Fancy Red Delicious Apples, The Pride of Washington State! Man, doesn't a delicious apple sound appetizing, tart and sweet, crunchy and satisfying?

Our mutual friend, Inmate Q. Public and I were vibin' hard one afternoon about his recent volunteerism experiences in the Vomitorium while waiting at the Veterinary office for blood work.

It seems that Inmate has been assigned to many different duties; table wiper, floor mopper and food server being the most common. "Table wiper is the most physical of the jobs, having to wipe down 56 tables between chow rotations four times in about three hours. Food server is the nastiest of the jobs, even worse than trash and mopping duties." Perplexed, I asked how serving food could be worse than trash duty, and was almost sorry I had...

"The food is served on compartmentalized trays with seven spots to place food. The spots are all different sizes and the servers have to be careful to place the nutritious patties in just the right spot, or else the other items won't fit. Some of the servers have extreme short term memory issues and place the patties on the salad spot which causes upheaval on the line. I was given the job of salsa and apples one day for brunch and did a good job, I kept up and didn't puke!" I asked him, "Why would apples and salsa make you want to puke?"

It seems that apples come in large boxes, separated in layers with flimsy cardboard. All the apples are the same size, shape and vivid bright red...on the first layer. The second layer reveals a horror show, a post Chernobyl mix of various fungi, bacteria, mold and dusty mildew clings to about 20% of the apples.

Inmate continues, "Serving the apples below the top layer is a roulette game, which apple will be the consistency of warm baby poop, which apple will leak on the others below it, a warm beige puss seeping from it? "

Fortunately, Inmate has lost much of his olfactory sense due to Covid, and didn't have to endure the nauseating smell of rotting apples. "I felt terrible, the dude serving patties to my left, and the dude serving milk and mustard packets to my right were both doleful and fighting the need to wretch. I was fine, except for having a gloved hand covered in what I hope wasn't toxic!"

Taxpayers, again, thank you for the food, but the advertising on the fancy box ain't what be inside. The State of Washington has enough to worry about right now, but maybe someone could call these apple purveyors and ask them not to put puss- filled apples in the boxes?

That would be swell!