An Apple A Day

Yesterday, when our mail guy made his morning rounds, he placed on my desk a square box. Inside the box was another square box that contained something called The Williams Sonoma Giant Caramel Apple. One of my clients sent it to me for Christmas.

I’ve never heard of it before, but it seems like one of those treats that people “ooh” and “aah” over—and one of those cheesy catalog gifts that I love to make fun of. But I also love getting presents, so I was grateful, yet skeptical.

The apple was huge—the biggest I’ve ever seen—bigger than a softball or a grapefruit. It was covered in squiggles of chocolate and layers of caramel and chunks of almonds. In spite of my disdain of holiday mail order catalog food, my mouth watered just looking at it. I knew the right thing to do was to take it into the kitchen and let my coworkers have at it. But then I got a phone call and I got distracted and I put The Gigantic Apple back into its box and left it on my desk.

Later that afternoon, I wandered into the office kitchen and discovered that some other kind employee whose parents obviously taught them to share had not only received The Gigantic Apple as a gift, but also had sliced it open and arranged it neatly on a plate for all to enjoy. I popped a piece into my mouth.

Mmmmm.

It was chewy and crunchy and salty and sweet all at the same time. The nuts were toasty and the apple was tart and the caramel was just gooey enough. In short, The Gigantic Apple was holiday mail order catalog food perfection.

I knew in that moment what I would do. I would carry my Gigantic Apple home with me. I would wait until spiceboy was safely out of the apartment, then I would slice open The Gigantic Apple and I would eat it in a frenzy of pure holiday gluttony.

And that’s exactly what I did.

The thing about The Gigantic Apple is that you don’t get tired of eating it. You know how when you eat too much of something sweet and then you feel like you need something salty to balance it out and then you crave something sweet again so you keep switching back and forth? Well, because The Gigantic Apple is both sweet and salty, there’s no need to switch.

I ate The Gigantic Apple while sitting on the couch and watching The Food Network.

I ate it while sitting at the computer, surfing the web for Christmas gifts for my loved ones.

I ate it while reading about Britney and Kevin’s marital problems in Us Weekly, and I ate it while reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

I ate it until my stomach cramped and my vision blurred and my fingers and toes began to tingle.

And even with all of that eating, The Gigantic Apple is so gigantic that there’s still half of it left.

This morning, while waiting for the water to get hot in the shower (which can take up to 10 minutes on some days), I pulled the apple out of the fridge and ate a hunk of it for breakfast. When I pulled back the shower curtain to climb into the shower and found that the water was still cold, I dashed naked across the apartment and grabbed yet another piece of The Gigantic Apple.

It’s a sad state of affairs, I know. But if you had The Gigantic Apple in your house, I bet you’d do the same. I’m powerless against it.

And since I’m a big nerd, I might as well admit that I can’t wait to go home tonight and eat The Gigantic Apple while reading Harry Potter. I wonder which one I’ll finish first?