Sweetgum Fruit is not Well-Named.

I'll tell you the punchline now: it took me three times to learn my lesson.

Here's the setup:

The other night, I wanted to listen to some music, but I realized that I left my iPod in my car. So I went outside, garbed in nothing but a pair of shorts. I ran across the asphalt in my bare feet to my car, realized I left my keys inside, ran back to the house, ran back to my car with my keys, forgot what I wanted, remembered it was my iPod, grabbed my iPod, and ran back towards my house [again].

I made it past the street and sidewalk just fine. But then I hit the grass. The grass was wet and cold, so I ran faster. Now, my neighbors have a sweetgum tree. In the winter, the sweetgum tree drops its fruit and it rolls around. Now, you'd think with a name like "sweetgum," the fruit would be fun.

But sweetgum fruit is not fun. It is unfun.

Sweetgum fruit should be renamed to "sweetgum mines." Because sweetgum fruit looks like this:



If you look closely, you'll notice that the sweetgum fruit is barbed and sharp:



I hit one of these things running at full speed, and a few of its brines got buried in the sole of my foot. Since I was running at top speed, I landed on it about twice more before I could stop.

I stopped and said something. It was not repeatable.

There were two things I needed to do: [1] get inside, because it was cold, and [2] remove the sweetgum fruit imbedded in my foot because it didn't belong there. Sadly, I opted to go in that order.

I walked forward again, and again said something. It too was not repeatable.

There were two things I needed to do: [1] get inside, because it was cold, and [2] remove the sweetgum fruit imbedded in my foot because it didn't belong there. This time around, though, I thought, "Hey, why don't I take the poorly named sharp object out of my foot before trying to get indoors?"

And then I thought, "Gee, that's a good idea! Why don't I sit down on that porch glider to do it?"

I stepped forward again.

Said imbedded object became more of an imbedded object.

This time, I bit my tongue and realized that I should just stop and take thorny, God-forsaken fruit out of my feet before trying to walk on them. I soon realized that I could apply that knowledge elsewhere in life. I could apply it to just about any situation where I had something sharp in me! It was valuable knowledge.

And... insert punchline.

[stop. bleed. think. go. stop. think. go. stop. remove. go.]
brian