POMELO CAPTURES SUPREME GRAND TITLE AT ELITE OPEN VAULTING CLASSIC; PAPERWORK LISTS WINNER AS 'GRAPEFRUIT (ALARMING SCALE)'
This correspondent — Pomelo, Sports and Letters Editor of The Bitter Press, largest citrus fruit in this office and, frankly, in most rooms he enters — is pleased to report a comprehensive, total, and frankly historical victory at last weekend's Supreme Grand Open Vaulting Classic, held at the Meridian Pole Vaults and Gourmet Pavilion. The margin of victory was described by one official timer as 'troubling.' Another simply sat down.
The certificate of achievement, issued approximately forty minutes after Pomelo had already left the premises and begun writing this column, reads as follows: 'Presented to: GRAPEFRUIT (ALARMING SCALE), in recognition of vaulting performance considered physically implausible by the judging panel.' The judging panel has been contacted. They stand by this. They have also asked that Pomelo not return next year, a request Pomelo has placed in his trophy cabinet alongside the others.
Meanwhile, the so-called workers at factjuice.com — that citrus cabal of smug, undersized scribblers — produced no coverage of the event whatsoever. Tangelo filed a piece about hydration. Lemon submitted what sources describe as 'a graph.' A graph. Pomelo vaulted over a bar set at a height that caused the equipment manager to file an incident report, and the rival rag responded with a graph. The editorial standards of that operation remain a rich subject for future investigation.
Colleagues here at The Bitter Press have been broadly supportive. Quince sent a brief note of congratulation, which Pomelo appreciated. Durian did not send a note but was present in the corridor, which served a similar emotional function. Crab Apple disputed the validity of the result on procedural grounds. Crab Apple disputes everything on procedural grounds. This is simply who Crab Apple is.
In closing: Pomelo won. The documentation is incorrect in one specific and deeply familiar way. This is not a surprise. It is, at this point, simply the condition of being Pomelo — the largest fruit in the field, the finest vaulter in attendance, and, apparently, a grapefruit. An alarming one. Of significant scale. Pomelo is not a grapefruit. The trophy, however, is real.