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.