So You've Been Called to Testify: A Fruit's Last Line of Defense
It has come to my attention — and by my attention I mean the involuntary full-body shudder I experienced last Thursday — that certain fruits are presenting themselves before Grand Deliberative Chambers, Oversight Panels, and Solemn Inquiry Boards wearing absolutely nothing of consequence. This ends now. Consider this your intervention.
Rule the first: if your surface is naturally waxy, use it. A high polish is not vanity — it is civic duty. You are addressing an institution. The institution deserves a gleam. I should not have to explain this, and yet here we are, because Tangelo apparently attended the Autumn Reckoning with a peel so matte it looked like he'd been stored in a paper bag since August. He had been. I checked.
Rule the second: stem presentation is non-negotiable. A curled, wilted, or — I shudder to write this — absent stem communicates moral bankruptcy before you have spoken a single word. Kiwi has no stem. Kiwi should not be testifying. These are related facts.
Rule the third, and I cannot stress this with sufficient ferocity: do not arrive bruised and call it character. The so-called workers at that rival rag have spent years mistaking structural damage for personality. Plum attended last season's Constitutional Fruit Review looking like he'd been dropped from a significant height and leaned into it. There is a word for this. The word is wrong.
I am available for private consultations. My rates reflect my expertise, which is to say they are considerable. Pomelo once asked for a discount. I have not spoken to Pomelo since.