Crap, I think I may be pretty.

I’ve never thought of myself as an ugly person, but I was never gorgeous either. The only time I’ve stopped traffic was the week I had crossing guard duty in 4th grade. I’m pretty sure the cars would have halted at the stop sign anyway, even if I hadn’t run into the street in my orange fluorescent jacket waving my big red octagon on a stick. I certainly think fat people can be beautiful, but I was ever one of them. I was homely, probably because I stayed at home a lot. In high school I’d never heard of the diffuser attachment for the blow dryer, nor did I use any anti-frizz sprays, so there may have been swallows nesting in my bushy hair and I wouldn’t have known it. I had braces. I wore glasses since second grade, but I never wore make-up. I was not a pretty girl, but that was okay. I had many other fine qualities and I didn’t care that much about how I [...]

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I bought a star fruit at the grocery this weekend because it was cute. I obviously have a weakness for cleverly shaped food products. I don’t know what it will taste like. I just took a chance because it’s pretty.

If I were judging people by how cute they looked, I would feel guilty for being prejudiced against the ugly. Yet I have no problem picking apples because they are particularly shiny, even though I know they’re only so shiny because they are coated in a thin layer of wax. My mother once left an apple on the seat of her car during the summer. She didn’t eat it, so she stuck the warm fruit back in the fridge. When I opened the fridge the next day, I saw this:

At first I thought a mold metropolis had materialized on the apple overnight. Then I realized the wax had become opaque due to the extreme heat and cold.

People like pretty fruit. The Florida Tomato Committee once banned the shipment of the UglyRipe tomato, a good tasting but [...]

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