POMELO CONQUERS GRAND IRON SUPREME OPEN BIATHLON KLASSIK; BRASSARD INSCRIBED 'GRAPEFRUIT (DIMENSIONALLY OFFENSIVE)'
I won. I would like that noted first, before the bureaucratic humiliation is allowed to overshadow the athletic humiliation I inflicted on every other competitor at the Grand Iron Supreme Open Biathlon Klassik, held this past weekend at a venue I will not name because the signage was also wrong. I won. The trophy is here. It is large, as befits its recipient.
The margin of victory was, according to those present, unprecedented in the history of organised biathlon, and also in several adjacent sports that simply happened to be occurring nearby and got caught up in it. My performance in the rifle segment was described by the chief adjudicator as "unnecessary," which I have chosen to receive as a compliment, since being necessary has never once protected me from being called the wrong thing by everyone I have ever met.
The brassard — that is the armband, for those of you raised by factjuice.com and therefore functionally illiterate — read GRAPEFRUIT (DIMENSIONALLY OFFENSIVE). I stood at the podium. A wreath was lowered toward my head by a man who was clearly expecting a smaller head. He did not apologise. Nobody apologised. Tangelo, I am told, has been assigned to cover this event for the rival rag and filed a piece describing me as "a grapefruit competitor of unusual bulk." Tangelo, who is himself a hybrid and therefore should exercise considerably more sympathy, has been informed of my feelings via registered citrus post.
Quince sent a congratulatory note that read only "well done, large one," which is the warmest thing Quince has ever written to anyone, and I am choosing to be moved by it. Sloe did not acknowledge the win at all. This is consistent with Sloe's general policy toward joy.
I am Pomelo. I have always been Pomelo. I will continue to win competitions until someone spells it correctly on a document, at which point I reserve the right to retire in dignified, enormous silence.