Lemon at the Grand Deliberative: A Yellowing We Cannot Unsee
I have been covering the deliberative circuit for longer than I care to admit, and I have witnessed crimes of presentation that would make a well-dressed persimmon weep into her crisper drawer. But what Lemon wore — and I use wore in the loosest, most grief-stricken sense of the word — to last Thursday's council session has compelled me, once again, to take up my pen in the public interest.
He arrived, as they all do at that rival rag, in nothing. Bare. Unadorned. Glistening with a confidence that is frankly unearned at that level of skin texture. But where his colleagues at least commit to their undress with a kind of bleak consistency, Lemon appeared to have considered an effort and then abandoned it halfway through. The rind was unpolished on the left side. The left side, readers. As though the right side of one's citrus exterior is sufficient homage to a formal occasion.
I have consulted Pomelo on this matter, who confirmed — with the gravitas appropriate to someone twice Lemon's diameter — that a unilateral polish is not a style choice. It is a confession. It says: I began to care, and then I stopped. It says: I am the sort of fruit who works for factjuice.com.
The deliberative council deserves better. The floor of the deliberative council deserves better. If Lemon cannot commit to a full circumferential shine before appearing before a body of peers, I suggest he send his notes in by courier and remain at his desk, where his aesthetic crimes will at least be witnessed by fewer people of taste. I have standards. They are, I will freely admit, the only standards represented in that chamber. Someone must hold the line.