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The woman has a fresh fruit fetish.

A full. Fledged. Fetish.

It came to light on Monday morning as we drove around in the daylight hours. Each time we passed a citrus tree she began clawing at the car window, whimpering, salivating, and...yes...shivering. It was new to me. She had a thing, not really about the fruit itself, but about actually PICKING the fruit off of the trees.

We didn't have any time to indulge her before we got to work, mostly because we found ourselves on 7th AVENUE instead of 7th STREET for 20 minutes before figuring out why we couldn't find the school. However, it was the first order of business once we were on our own time. We had to get Ally her fruit.

As you can see above, the citrus was plentiful, in fact I later found out that the orange blossoms were beginning to bloom again, so most if not all of the oranges, grapefruit and lemons should really have been picked off to make way for the new. The trees themselves were just everywhere. In front yards, along tree banks, much like you would find the lilac bush displayed here in the Chicagoland suburbs.

Now we could have acquired the fruit in any number of ways. It would have been absolutely no problem at all for us to knock on a door, tell them that we were visiting from Chicago and ask permission to pluck a few past-their-prime oranges. I'm sure they would have been eager for us to do so. But that really was a lame and unexciting way to go about it. We also could have done what folks do around here to get a bouquet of lilacs. You just walk past a bush (or tree) and pluck as you walk with the ever so prominent "I have the right to do this" attitude. Now we COULD have opted for that, however we had no idea what kind of neighborhood we were in (we later found out it was called the ring of fire because of all of the meth labs). We decided against the out in the open method.

After all, isn't espionage just more exciting?

So, drove around and found the most abundant trees, and waited for nightfall.

Can I just state that there is something very creepy about driving around a strange neighborhood at night? Especially when you are on a mission. We quickly ran into a bit of a glitch. First, it turns out that the people of Phoenix tend to be out in their yards at night. That was a bitch, although I wish I'd had the camera to get the look on Ally's face when she reached up to do a pick and saw the homeowner in his back yard. She quickly transformed her picking hand into a "hi there" hand, gave a silly little wave and jumped into the car as I sped away. Nothing like calling attention to ourselves.

Another problem was that the fruit in the trees was much higher than it at first appeared. Ally had to really do a stretch to get close. She tried shaking the limbs to little avail, and finally reverted to using a water bottle to extend her reach. With the bottle, she beat at the fruit in an attempt to get it to drop. It worked with limited success, but success it was!

...

Tired, and laden with a single grapefruit and a branch with a single orange, we dragged our jet-lagged bodies home, slurped up our ill gotten bootie, and went to "bed." Actually, I went to couch, where I went each night after the first.

On Tuesday night, we had a few tricks up our sleeves. OK, that is if we had been wearing them, but it was 94 degrees and it was just to warm. First, we had another accomplice. "Ho" had joined us. So on this last fruit run, we had her behind the wheel, me in the passenger seat so I could call the shots (and plead innocent if caught), and Ally in the back ready to jump and pick (after all, it WAS her fetish).

AND! We had another trick. A tool. Ally and I went to the local WalMart (God bless Sam Walton) and we bought one of those extended reacher/grabber things that old folks and we vertically challenged use. And so. We waited until midnight, and we went out for the fruit raid.

We cruised around for a bit, waiting for that one place that would give us the succulent reward we'd been after for days. Not satisfied with any of the safer (read: well lit) places, we went into the darkest side streets and the deserted allies in the ring of fire.

Ho was very nervous. When we told her of our plan, she was like "Shut up! We can just buy fruit." Oh, our sweet innocent silly little Ho. We just told her to shut up herself and drive. We decided to visit the house we saw for sale that looked abandoned. There was an alley in the back and the trees kind of bent over the fence, heavy with the taunting citrus.

Ho pulled in and we hissed at her to turn the headlights off. It was so quiet, and dark. Even Ally took a bit of a breath before I triple dog dared her out of the car. When she got out and began concentrating on using the grabber, I got Ho to start inching the car up, to give Ally a bit of a tease. We were quietly giggling as the car inched further away from her down into the alley. And then I looked to my right, out of my open window, and saw a face.

THERE'S A MAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

We all freaked. I mean, there was this man's face right by my window! Actually, he was looking over his fence into the ally, but we were very close to his side. I don't know how long he was there, I don't much of anything except when I saw him I peed myself and screamed like a sissy and I think the whole city heard me.

Meanwhile, Ally hears the scream, tries to jump in the car and of course we are not right there because I thought it would be so funny to creep forward while she wasn't looking. And the headlights were off still. The back door was still open, so as Ally jumped in with me still screeching, I'm signaling and shrieking for Ho to back up onto the street. I wanted the shortest path to safety. Nah. Ho floors it...I mean she Starsky and Hutches that rental car so bad that i doubt there in any gravel left. it's probably in that man's face. No headlights, we peel down the alleyway and onto the street just like you see in the movies, screaming like children the whole time. All three of us screaming.

I'm not sure when the headlights came on, or when we stopped screaming and began laughing or when the laughter begat tears. I don't know if the squad car we saw with the searchlight was looking for us. I don't don't know if the guy who freaked us out was thinking we were up to something illegal. I don't know if we scared him as badly as we scared ourselves.

And in the end, all we got out of it was one freaking over ripe grapefruit.

What happens in Arizona, stays in Arizona. I think it's best that way.

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