Those Annyoing Little Stickers

Little things have a habit of being waaay more annoying than their size would indicate.

(Anyone currently making "short people" jokes --- and you know who you are, Big Cuter --- can stop it right now.)

This was brought into specific relief by Jenny, whose eloquent rant on the rudeness of renters (complete with photographs) included a mention of those little round identification stickers which have been appearing on fruit since the early 2000's.

Actually, they aren't totally round because they have a small tab at the top edge.... which would be a brilliant design addition if the small tab didn't also have adhesive on the back, leaving you back at the initial premise of this post which is that this little thing has an aggravation factor grossly disproportionate to its size.

Granted, I could rip the skin of the fruit off with the tag and be done with it. But I ask you, would a chocoholic risk losing a smidgen of delight to a tag? I don't think so. Not that I would know. Because, and this is the honest truth, I have never eaten chocolate.

Never had a candy bar. Never eaten a brownie. Never had chocolate ice cream or devils food cake. I'll eat a chocolate chip cookie, but more often than not TBG is the recipient of the more chip-laden bites. G'ma tells me that my pediatrician had her German housekeeper make a tray of chocolate goodies for me one afternoon, and she watched in amazement as I nibbled on the edge of a piece of pound cake. Unfrosted pound cake.

So, my question regarding the chocoholic is a real one; my information comes only from what I've observed. But watching TBG and Sees almond clusters, seeing G'ma down a Hershey's Kiss on her way to lunch, laughing at the Little Cuter and her father jousting over chocolate cake, pouring the chocolate syrup into Mr. 6's milk to the tune of "more...more...more" ..... all these lead me to believe that the answer is a resounding NO.

I like to wash my fruits with a spray to remove toxins (why I think the spray is more hygienic than the crap that's on there already is another mystery we can ponder some day) and then I rinse the spray off with water. Neither the spray nor the water alone are enough to remove those pesky stickers. If the tab is un-stuck there is no problem. If it's glued down then there's the need to apply just the right amount of pressure to the fruit so as not to bruise it while pressing hard enough to separate the adhesive from the skin.

I'm boring myself just writing it, and that's nothing to how annoying it is to be doing it. So, I'll move on. Once I've got the little bugger on my fingertip, I am faced with disposal. I can't just flick it off - the adhesive really works. I can't rub it off on a kitchen surface - Jenny's post gives graphic evidence of how well that works out. If I rub it off onto a kitchen towel I have to remember to remove it or else it goes into the washer - which isn't good for either the towel or the washer. And getting it into the garbage can involves touching either the bag or a piece of garbage in order to transfer the sticky bastard to the container.

I'm beyond bored, now. I'm into pissed off.

All I wanted was a plum. A nice, imported from Chile, way too expensive, perfectly ripe plum. Juice could drip down my chin; I wouldn't complain. All I wanted was a bite, a crisp, sweet, red and purple and almost-pink bite of plum.

Instead, I got to duel with a label.

Liking chocolate would be much easier.