Orange you supposed to ask first?*

It’s citrus season. Our neighborhood is dotted with orange and grapefruit and lemon trees, and as the season wears on, our neighbors’ lawns are becoming dotted with more and more overripe oranges and grapefruits and lemons.

That’s the thing about citrus trees. They always produce more fruit than you need. You pick a few grapefruits to eat with your breakfast or a big bowlful of tangerines to snack on. Eventually you get sick of that tangy juice and still that dang tree keeps a-goin’. So you offer citrus to your friends and family, but of course they have their own trees and are dealing with their own bumper crops. Inevitably that fruit will fall and rot and get run over by the lawn mower.

Best smell ever, by the way: fresh cut grass mixed with the occasional rogue orange.

I’ve considered asking my neighbors if I could harvest some of their citrus since I know they’re never going to use it all. But I always feel a little weird and shy about it. I chicken out and never ask and citrus season ends and we all move on with our lives.

I saw a lady walking down our street today with a grocery bag in hand. She stopped at every house with branches hanging over the curb, looked for a ripe fruit to pick, casually put it in her bag, and kept walking.

Is that totally creepy and wrong, or totally brilliant and so so right?

* WORST. PUN. EVER. But I just couldn’t resist. Forgive me?