Wednesday, February 22, 2012

22 Years (The Stories - #5 - What Color Is Your Applesauce?)



My life with MY WIFE, continued.

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR APPLESAUCE?

I know, I know. That’s a provocative question, and not one that’s usually asked in polite company. However, I want your honest answer. Don’t be shy! We’re all friends here. Nobody’s going to laugh at you if you say that your applesauce is a different color from everybody else’s applesauce.

So, what color is your applesauce?

Really, think about it – or, since it’s not really the type of question that should require deep thought, don’t. I would appreciate it, though, if you’d give me your answer before you’re unduly prejudiced by anything that follows.

I will now tell you why I’m asking what color your applesauce is.

The other night, during dinner, the subject of the color of applesauce came up in conversation.

(Yes, this is why MY WIFE and I have such a successful marriage. We’re not afraid to tackle the really important issues head-on.)

I have no idea why the topic even came up, but I had served us both a small dish of applesauce as part of our meal, so we had the evidence for answering the question right in front of us. All I had to do was look at the applesauce and report on what color I considered it to be.

I said applesauce is green.

MY WIFE made the same sort of face you’re probably making right now. She said, "Green? You think applesauce is green?"

"Yeah. What color do you think it is?"

"Yellow."

"Yellow? No way! It’s not YELLOW!"

And so forth.

I should explain that we’ve previously had minor skirmishes concerning color. I have a green shirt that she swears is blue. Or it’s a blue shirt that she swears is green. I forget now. Either way, I was right. She won’t admit that I was right, and she says that I’m colorblind.

OK, I am a little bit colorblind. But it has nothing to do with green. I sometimes can’t tell whether something is blue or purple. It usually turns out to be deep purple (which is my favorite band, so it’s all good.)

Putting aside the blue-purple thing - which, if something is blue-purple, it’s probably a good idea to put it aside permanently - I’ve taken tests for colorblindness. You know the ones, where there are all of those differently colored dots and there’s a number hidden in the dots? Like this:




I always see the correct number (which, by the way, is 29 in this instance. If you see 70, you have either red or green colorblindness. If you see neither 29 nor 70, you're just plain blind, I think.)

I’m not colorblind.

(Except for a very slim range of blue and purple.)

Be that as it may – and it usually is - I then took a really good look at the applesauce in front of me and I have to admit it looked more yellow than green. I’m not saying it didn’t have any green sort of look to it, but...

Oh, hell, it was most definitely NOT green. Not that I was willing to admit it. Not yet, anyway.

The next day, at work, I asked some of my co-workers what color they thought applesauce was. I didn’t say, "Hey, co-worker, applesauce is green, right?" I just asked them what color it was, with no indication concerning the answer I desperately wanted at least one of them to give me. Here were their answers:

Light Brown
Off-White
Light Beige
Puke Yellow

After receiving these answers, I ventured forth the thought that, perhaps, under certain circumstances, given the correct lighting conditions, applesauce might be considered green.

Upon hearing that theory, the verdict was unanimous. I was a nut.

The only one who offered me any hope concerning my sanity was Dan (he of the "light beige" response.) He asked me what color my kitchen was. I told him blue.

He said, "What about your kitchen when you were growing up? Could it have been green?"

I said, "Maybe. I can't recall for sure."

He replied, "Well, since applesauce is light beige, which is really just another name for off-white, maybe your applesauce was reflecting the green from the walls of your kitchen."

I thanked him for the out he was trying to give me, but by that time I knew the jig was up. Applesauce isn’t green. Not even a teeny tiny bit.

Now, I want you to understand something important. When MY WIFE and I had the original debate about the color of applesauce, I didn’t say my applesauce was green because I had just then looked at it sitting in front of me and, after careful consideration, come to the conclusion that it was green. No, this was just something I thought I knew. If you had come up to me on the street, totally out of the blue (or purple), with no applesauce anywhere to be seen, and you had asked me what color applesauce was, I would have replied, "Green, of course. Anything else you need to know? How much 2 + 2 equals? How to spell cat? What planet we’re on? Duh!"

I truly don’t know how I came to think that applesauce was green, but it’s something I’ve considered a rock-solid truth for 50 years. Now that I know I was wrong about that one, what other of my assumptions must I question? Are cigarettes actually bad for me? Were The Beatles NOT a cynical moneymaking rip-off of The Monkees? Is Roger Clemens actually a nice guy? Is my nothing but red meat, cheese, and peanut butter with saltines diet unhealthy? Does Pauly Shore have talent? I am completely flummoxed, bewildered, stunned, and flabbergasted to find out that I could have held such an obvious untruth in my head for so long.

All dark clouds have a silver lining, though. At least, they look silver to me; I may be wrong. In any case, the other night, after an extremely beery excursion to Fenway Park with my Cousin David, I arrived home in a less-than-sober state. I decided that I wanted something to eat. I went out to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. This is what I saw.




I laughed like a loon. While I was off getting drunk at a ballgame, MY WIFE was home dyeing our applesauce green. Now that's true love.

She rocks my world, whatever color it may be.

Soon, with more better stuff.



21 comments:

Julie said...

lol ... now that's the definition of love ....

The Broad said...

My mother's applesauce was pink -- so there!! Honest! The trick is to use good red apples and when you boil them keep the skins on and them use an applesauce sieve and it will come out pink. I wouldn't be surprised if you did the same with 'granny smith's' the result would be green applesauce!

Lowandslow said...

The color of applesauce? You mean going down or coming back up? I hate applesauce. It's what they do with old nasty looking apples too deformed / semi-rotten to sell. They mash 'em up, dye 'em green/off white/light beige, and sell 'em to drunken Red Sox fans.

Next you're gonna tell me corn is yellow. Sheesh!

S

Daryl said...

I think Motts apple sauce is off white, sort of beige .. but I have seen some that look sort of sepia .. Toonman wont eat the sepia colored apple sauce ...

Michelle H. said...

Life is like applesauce. You take it as it comes to you, and make it into something you can digest and live with, whether you eat it whole or mash it up into applesauce.

A wonderful story about true love.

Craig said...

YOUR WIFE is amazing. . . I truly admire the effort she's willing to put into a joke. . .

;)

Jen makes her own applesauce, and it usually comes out somewhere around cappucino-brown, but depending on the batch of apples, and the atmospheric conditions, it may or may not have pink highlights. Sometimes she puts raspberries in it, and that makes it a bright red. . .

What if I saw both the 29 (a number you share with Mickey Lolich, btw) and the 70?

Clare Dunn said...

Oh! She bought the St. Paddy's Day Applesauce!!! (It actually IS green, and tastes like Irish Whiskey).

:)

xoxoxo, cd

Ruby said...

That was a charming end to the story! And I see both 29 and 70 - what does that mean?? Cheers, Ruby

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

Applesauce!
You want applesauce?
You can't handle applesauce!

Tabor said...

Your wife needs to get out in the evenings.

Shrinky said...

I think your wife really, really loves you (or she is too nuts to ever find anyone else)!!

Buck said...

Well... the "as served" product is light brown, since I always lace my applesauce with huge amounts o' cinnamon. But the raw stuff is off-white.

Unless someone sneaks in and dyes it.

Jenny Woolf said...

Loved this post! what a nice lady your wife is. I bet she dyes her clothes too, to make you happy.

Now, here's a question for you. What colour are tree trunks?
(no peeping)

I was reading a book which explained the strange but true facts that the ancients (i mean ROmans, Greeks etc) didn't have a colour blue to describe the sky. They just didn't have that colour name. What's more it's something common in most primitive human societies. Blue is a colour they don't have a word for).

Not that this has much to do with applesauce, which I would say is a little darker than the colour of your blog background, (however you would describe that colour)

notactuallygod said...

She DOES love you, and has a nice sense of humor to boot. -congrats

On the color of applesauce; there are some beige brands that do have a green tint. They're not green per se, but there is that tint.

Now I must do ten push-ups for saying 'per se'.

IT (aka Ivan Toblog) said...

Wouldn't it be fun to ask that question in a philosophy class?

messymimi said...

If i color my applesauce, it might end up purple. You never know with me.

stephen Hayes said...

Applesauce can change in color depending on whether or not there's cinnamon in it, but probably never green. It's interesting when you go a long time believing something only to have it challenged. My wife and I realized a few years ago that we didn't agree on which day came first in the week. I wrote a blog about it (Calendar Wars) and judging from the responses I got, there doesn't seem to be much agreement on that either.

flutterby said...

I love the buy-in to the joke. :) Now, that girl's a keeper.

silly rabbit said...

When I was growing up the school served a mysterious form of apple sauce that was PINK. It was just wrong.
I can certainly see why your WIFE is so perfect for you. I love these stories about the two of you.
Such a happy marriage you two are blessed with!

lime said...

that is hilarious. it's hilarious that you thought it was green all your life and it's even funnier that YOUR WIFE dyed the applesauce bright green. i think you're ready for st patty's day for the temperate crowd now, eh?

Kat said...

Oh my gawd. I love your wife. No wonder you two have such a wonderful marriage. You have so much fun together!!!! I love you both!

My applesauce is brown. I mean brown, brown. I make my own applesauce and add a ton of cinnamon and cloves. Mmmmm.

Now I want some applesauce.