On Eating Grapefruit.

When I was little and lived in Washington, I remember distinctly my mom's love of grapefruits. It is on the Pacific Coast only that I ever associate grapefruits with my mom. Oh what good memories! She used to cut them in half and sprinkle sugar on top and then scoop the fruit out with a spoon to eat. Cleaning the peel completely, we would turn them upside down in the garden as nature's perfect slug catcher. The next morning Robert and I would tentatively lift the peels and find the slimy creatures by the twos curled up in the top. Excited we would run and grab the salt, slugpoison. The rest is history, quite literally.
Nowadays, grapefruits are taking on a new form of pleasure for me. It started with the orange eating in the shower. Now I'm embracing the stickiness of citrus in all its glory. Katie and I bought a bag of 6ish grapefruit from Bi-Lo for $2.50 over Easter break. The first morning, she brought me half of one for breakfast, cut in half like my mom used to do it (this time all grown up and without sugar). A few nights later I cut my own in half (the wrong way) and scooped it out messily with a spoon and a lot of slurping.
Tonight, I had the last grapefruit for a midnight snack. I tried oh so hard to figure out which way to cut down the middle so that it was pretty and easier to eat, but I did it wrong again, so I just decided to quarter it. I stuck the quarters in a bowl and poured Sugar in the Raw all over them. It dissolved into the slices and they began to secrete a citrusy syrup. I peeled them sort of like an orange and ate the slices happily. The next quarter I used my  index finger to rub in the remaining sugar granules. Licking the syrup off my finger, I tried to peel the quarter the same, but the little pockets of juice began breaking and forming a river of yellowy peach liquid that dripped between my knuckles (hilariously making the green mark disappear from my finger where I wear a cheap copper ring). The last half of the grapefruit became a sort of game of slurping, drinking, peeling, and devouring messily. I realized my favorite thing was to peel even the thin skin of each slice off so the little blisters of juice clung together fragile and I could scoop them between two fingers and eat just the pockets of juice which burst in my mouth.
I washed my hands, but the smell still lingers, and I like it that way.