What A Fruit!

I was hanging out on my lunch break (in front of the office in Midtown), sitting on Robert Indiana's Love Sculpture, enjoying my lamb gyro on a pita with my friend, Jeremy, the other day. It was a very nice, hot day and tons of people were walking about. A few people stopped for the middle eastern vendor who sells "fresh" fruit from his cart right next to the Love Sculpture. I paid no mind.

While Jeremy and I were talking, the vendor looks at me and waves enthusiastically. I half raised my hand and mostly just looked at him like "What? Who the fuck? Que? I don't... whatever." Jeremy looked over his shoulder, back at me and then questioned "What was that about" - to which I replied "I dunno. I guess that dude thought he knew me. Weird." I kind of got a creepy vibe from the dude, but thought nothing of it. Then about 10 minutes later, Mr. Vendor Man did it again. I just looked at him completely unenthused like "what are you, fuggin retarded?" He kind of went away.

Now, normally this wouldn't be blogworthy, but the next day during my lunch break, I sat atop the same Robert Indiana piece and consumed my daily lamb gyro pita (with everything on it, extra white sauce and a splash of spicy sauce). Mr. Vendor Man came up to me and said:

Mr. VM: Why you don't want fruit? You want fruit?
Me: Uhhh, no, I'm fine [waving my pita at him]. Thanks, though.
Mr. VM: Have some fruit. Come, have some fruit.
Me: [forcefully] No, thanks. I'm fine.
Mr. VM: Here. I give you cherries. For you it's free.
Me: [suddenly amiable] Okay!

He started cramming this bag full of cherries - to the point where I felt uncomfortable.

Me: No, that's enough. Thank you, sir.
Mr. VM: No, here. Take peach? You want peach?
Me: No, thanks, that's --

Mr. VM crams peaches in there. Then, strawberries. I protest. Then, he looks at me and says:

Mr. VM: You want banana?
Me: [repulsed - totally thinking of sexual innuendo] Uh, no. That's fine. That's enough. Thanks.

Mr. VM, per usual, completely disregards my protest and makes eye contact the whole time he slowly inserts the (phallic, duh) banana into the black open plastic bag. I grab the bag, say thanks, give him an awkward arm/shoulder pat and literally run into my office building.

Gross, huh? I felt dirty eating some of the fruit. Whatever; it was free. I didn't eat the banana, though. I totally gave it to another girl in the office. She told me that the fruit guy is creepy and gives all the girls free fruit. Ugh. Disgusto.

As I made my way home, Mr. Vendor Man tried calling my attention by frantically waving for me to come to him and halfway jumping up and down. Needless to say, I pretended to neither hear him through my headphones nor see him in my periph(eral). I scurried home. Men are stupid. Free fruit isn't the way into my pants. Money is, stupid!

Kidding,
Tanya to the E.