"Ugh! What is that?"

My colleague wrinkled his nose and had a look of pure disgust on his face as he eyed my desk.

---

I'd been eating grapes. Black grapes. Black, seeded grapes. The nice people don't do seedless varieties, it seems. Lovely and sweet, they are, but with seeds. I'm not good with seeds, pips and stones. Big will happily wolf such things down, but pip anxiety sets in with me - I imagine that they will either break my teeth, choke me or grow a tree in my tummy. Some people are happy to put the seedular item, whole, in their mouth, then retrieve the seed using a combination of tongue, lips and teeth and spit it out. I will not let such a thing even enter my mouth - I either eat around it ( i.e. olives, apples) or remove it before popping it in. With these grapes, I chose the latter option.

I placed a tissue on my desk and pulled each grape open with my fingers, gouging the seeds out onto the tissue before finally eating the grape. A bit of a faff, a little sticky, but the result was worth it.

Despite their dark, purple exterior, the flesh inside the grapes was green, as is the norm, I believe. Each removed seed was surrounded by a slimy, green film and soon, I'd built up quite a collection on the tissue. A tissue, with grape seeds on it, on my desk. Nothing wrong with that, you'd think.

Trouble is, in a situation like this, you need the context. Unless you know the origin of the tissue-based detritus, it can look like something really quite different. Hence, the reaction of my colleague.

I must say, I can see what he meant.



Mind you, since the sanding incident, my nasal passages have never quite been the same...