Don't Go Chasing Watermelons

It’s Hip to be Square

They’re sweet and delicious and an integral part of any legitimate picnic – but we hate them. It’s because they are round and irregular, because they roll, bruise, burst and are basically hard to handle.
We’re just not watermelon fans – or at least we weren’t until the Japanese got involved.

A few years ago, some innovative Japanese farmers came up with the idea of putting watermelon in tempered glass cubes while still on the vine. This forced them into a cube shape dimensionally appropriate for Japanese refrigerators. It also made loading the melon truck considerably easier.

There is, of course, a hitch. The extra labor involved, as well as all those glass boxes, pushed up the price of watermelon a bit. They cost $82.

So for now, we’ll continue cursing the watermelon – sweet, sticky and hard to move – and continue to long for the day when everything round is conveniently squared.