Fruit Stand

Like all American men, I'm a stickler for my fruit and produce. If you're like me, you're sick of those mealy apples and hard avocados that Trader Joe tries to sell you. There's nothing safe about the way Safeway thinks I'm gonna eat their shitty watermelon. And Whole Foods? Well, more like whole lot of money to buy food there. Yeah, for my money and for a little bit of quality, you can't beat the highway fruit stand.

All right. I know it's a little earlier than normal to open the fruit stand, but it's first day of summer. A lot of people gonna be on the road today. So I just wanted to make sure that we are prepared with all the fruit, all the almonds. And of course, we're adding the snack area like pork rinds and stuff like that today, which I'm very excited

about. It's gonna be a fantastic season, Michael. Yes.

I fully agree with you, Glenn. I mean, this is the, you know, people have been cooped up. It's been a rainy kind of winter, a musky spring.

And so I'm excited for this. Fruits on the brain. Absolutely, Michael. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So can I ask a

question before we get started? I've noticed that the Bartlett pears and the regular pears are in the same section.

that's going to be confusing to people?

Do you think

Because I love a Bartlett pear, but I hate a regular pear.

Can we put them across the room?

I love this. I do want to just remind everybody that we had three months to take suggestions and I'm very thrown getting a suggestion the morning of the opening. A big move would really mess with my head.

My

apologies, Michael. I love the setup. I'm open to the thinking. So maybe we can just move the Bartlett pears into their own bin.

I love that.

But not across the room.

That satisfies me. Maybe we label the bin.

I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. So let me just, I guess, make a new Bartlett pears label. That's a little bit different in font because we're not printing it. It's in my handwriting.

Um, so with the flies, um, we were having a bit of a fly problem last year.

I see you have the fly tape up. Um, and I was just wondering if there's anything I could do to help

So

keep the flies away. Um, I,

I think keep eating them. I think that's working as you go around and see

I,

flies. I think just keep eating them.

Now I know Michael, you didn't like me doing that, chomping into the air and trying to catch them.

Um, but I was really trying to help.

And, um, you know, I, I, I, I feel like I do have a knack for it. I can eat flies. And I know that's not why you hired me, but you found that out about me, um, pretty deep into the season last year. Um, and I was, I would get too full and I had to go home. Um, but that's a good day. I think that's a good day. And, and I, I don't want to get too full from flies this year.

So I think it's going to be best if we just do the fly tape and, you know, keep the breeze in here. So let's not put up the walls. I think just kind of keep the, the, the tent open. I think that'll really help.

Yes. Cause I think at the end of the day, while I appreciate the intent of eating all the flies, that, that is more of a symptom, uh, uh, to the, that we're solving than the overall problem, which is too many flies, which

I want to kind of direct towards Mel.

Well, before we go speaking of symptoms,

Oh yeah. You caught a couple of fly related illnesses.

I do. I have, yeah, I have crispy wing. Um, I don't know if you can see on my back. Yeah.

It's just your skin is kind of like, like flaking off a little bit and it looks like a fly wing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, they don't know, really know exactly what's going on, but I have been off flies for a while.

Um, we know what's going on,

but normally you don't turn into the thing you're eating, you know, like normally,

right.

Uh,

cause it was so unsettling to walk into the room and find you standing on my bowl of cereal.

So you're getting some behavioral too.

big behavioral, a

I'm getting

little bit

of physical symptoms, a little bit of behavioral and we weren't as worried, right? Cause you're

frantic,

you're frantic. And so we are used to you buzzing

around.

I can feel any pressure getting close to me and I move out of the way. Um, but yeah, I was, uh, on the corner of your cereal for a while.

I was in your house for a couple of weeks and you couldn't get rid of me. I couldn't, I couldn't. And you, my cat had a blast trying to get you, but yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm to

listen. I know where it was going. All right. I know where it was going. You're about to turn on me. You're going to say, Hey Mel, seems like this whole no pesticides thing ain't working anymore. And I'll tell you right now, don't give a shit.

Mel, I'm going to say you sound a little defensive.

Oh yeah. Well, how about somebody comes here and says, Hey, the thing that you've based your whole personality as a farmer on for the last 15 years, it ain't working anymore. Well, how would you feel if somebody told it and said, Hey, your way of life, you got to change it all right now. I'll say we're

trying to be helpful, right? Because

as we look over here at the Mel's section of apples and stuff, they're pretty eaten up by pests. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You guys know anything about gut health? A

little, yeah. The biome.

Grubs and worms.

That's not what gut

health is. Yeah, it is. No, it's not. You have to have a thriving ecosystem in your stomach. And that means predators, prey, bacteria,

all up the

game. You're eating the whole ecosystem. Yes. The inside of your... Read the internet every now and then, okay? I know we like to live outside,

but if you would just get on the internet for two seconds, you'd realize you have to have a thriving ecosystem in your gut and intestines in order to be healthy. I hate to say this to my brother, but this defensiveness and this attitude is why you're thrice divorced.

Okay? No, it's not. It's money. It might be money. Yeah. It

might be money. I mean, money problems are all

of our

winter months especially. Seriously. Farms dead over the winter, and that's when the wives always want the stuff.

Because they get cold. They say, give me an extra

blanket, Mel. They say, oh, I think I need socks this winter, Mel. You can afford a blanket. Oh, yeah, right. Not in this economy. They say, hey, turn on a heater every now and then in a house, Mel. And I say, what heater? We ain't had a heater in a long time because it costs a lot of money, okay? Maybe if you got married once you know what it's like to have relationship problems and you wouldn't come down on me so far. I

can't get married.

Mel, your corner stinks, okay? It doesn't work. It's not working. We're going to have to make a change. You wanted to run this place like it was a record shop and have fruit recommendations up front for what we're all buying this week. Yeah. It's just not working. It's nasty. It's disgusting.

Nobody likes it. I don't think you guys are selling it very hard is really the problem. I think you guys look at my stuff as sort of second

fiddle. It's hard to sell half eaten by pests.

Don't pitch it like that. Pitch it as so tasty, even the bugs want to eat it.

I

try. I try, but people have a hard time listening to me when they could just look at the broken fruit. It's broken fruit.

It just doesn't stay good very long, Mel. It has about a 60 second

window of when you can eat it from when it's grown too rotten. What in this life lasts long that's worth doing?

Marriage generally,

usually. Get one.

Hello. Hi. I just wanted to check out. I've got some of this trail mix here. There wasn't a price on it. I just wanted to see how much the trail mix was. My son, as you can see in the car, is very hungry. He looks very hot too.

I think I left the AC on for him. Well, we should do this quick just in

case. Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, this is a medium bag of trail mix. So

that's $3 .82 with tax. Great. Were you interested in any fruit today?

You

know what? I'll take maybe some blueberries.

Okay. Well, why don't I walk you right over to Mel's corner where the fruit is so good, the bugs can't even avoid. How's that sound?

Wow. Yeah. Well, that's good for the bugs. It's looking to me like this food is almost inedible to a human though. Wow. I think I would maybe prefer.

Well, there's a few things on it that are edible. This is

a fly.

I'm not a fly. I'm a man. Oh, sorry. I'm a man. My name is Bert.

I'm just going to get the trail mix real quick and get out of here.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. I blew that sail.

It's okay. I think I did too. I think we're all blowing sales pretty

regularly.

That's okay.

This male section is a problem for me. There are flies all over it and I'm so hungry. Then eat them.

What's the problem? I can't.

bad for me. I'll say this. It's the first day of summer. I'm annoyed. Three months, three months, every day I said, I have an email going out suggestions and fixes from last year. And here we are day one, right? And nobody, I'm getting all these problems right away. The fly thing we were, we had in the emails. Are you done being a fly? And you said, yes. And here you come fully flied out. You walked in this morning and I know that was due to on your feet. Okay.

It's

I, in my defense and all of our defense, when you sent that email, I thought it was about fixings and I was stuffed. I was so stuffed all summer or winter, wherever we're talking about that I didn't need any fixings. So I just didn't open it.

But now I see that you're saying it was suggestions and fixes. And in my defense, I don't think what I'm doing has ever been or ever will be a problem.

I wish I could divorce from being your brother and work partner.

I dare you to try.

I'm saying, I wish I could. And you know what? I will try to, I want to legally divorce you from being my brother.

Oh yeah? Yes.

Good thing. I signed a prenup

before you were born.

Oh no, you're fucked. Oh no. If you break up with your brother, he's going to take the fruit stand and ruin it. You said it. You have to. This was such a point of intention

with me and my parents.

They allowed me in utero as my beneficiary, they signed a prenup that I did not agree to. I would have never signed a brotherly prenup.

Never. How do you know you didn't sign it?

Yeah. You could have reached. You think I reached out and signed a prenup?

I don't know. Hey, you want to know the lawyer went in. They're doing all kinds of interesting birth stuff these days.

Well, either way, I feel absolutely screwed. I feel like Britney Spears here and I wish I could be freed from this toxic relationship. Don't you know that you're toxic

now? Is that why you've been making all those weird Instagram reels? Because you feel like Britney Spears? They're all coded.

You like roll your sweatpants band down a little bit to show a little bit more of your hips and you shake them back

and forth. So you're describing what I'm doing, but you're using the word weird.

you're talking about two different things

So I think

because I am making those Instagram things, but I'm not making anything weird. I'm dancing as you look down at me from one of the most

upsetting angles possible.

It just seems like you're part of some sort of conservancy or something where you're not in control and you're trying to ask for help.

I like those videos. I really enjoy those videos. Thank you. And I really like when you sing, Oops, I Did It Again. And I really like that song because I relate to it in a personal level because I sing it sometimes after I eat a fly.

I heard you humming it as you stepped

out of the car this morning.

Honestly, you look stuffed when you arrived today. You arrived with both windows down and your head out the window and you burped right as you pulled

into the parking lot. I hate to tell you guys, but I spent the night last night next to a big purple light and I had an absolute feast. I was off the wagon.

I'm off the wagon. Let me open this note. You gave me a note this morning and you said you need me to read it. Yeah. Two stuff. Can I go home early, please? On the first day, the first thing you did out of the car was hand

me a note. Why didn't you read it until now? I've been

so sluggish all day. I was trying to do

the

I handed it to you and winked.

I thought it was my birthday present.

Oh, happy birthday, by the way.

Oh, my God. Thank

you.

I forgot it's always the first day of summer. Yes. I always forget. I was born on the Equinox.

Yes. Yes. Well, listen. Okay. We're right on for my birthday, I guess. Yeah. Go ahead. Can we move on to banana thoughts?

Banana thoughts. Yes. Yes.

I love bananas. And I was wondering just this year since they go

on the ground, can we

all get a staff banana each day? Like if you work at a bar,

sometimes they give you a staff beer at the end of the shift. Yes. I would love a staff banana pre -shift. I like this a lot. And during shift. Yes. And then what after? We can use mine.

No. Yeah. I want a real staff banana.

I think a staff banana is fair. I just want to say right now, a staff banana is fair. Yeah. Okay.

Per day. All right. I don't want it to be taken advantage of. If I do the little ones, can I have five or six of them that add up to one big one?

No. One staff banana. Pick a big banana and

eat it. One staff

banana. What is this? Com Cuba? What is this? Com Cuba? Come on. And I don't want your staff bananas because those have actual staff infection and I don't like those.

I don't need that. No. See, that's where you guys are wrong. You need infections. You need infections because it makes your immune system stronger.

You look like a zombie.

look like a zombie. You look like you're drinking a glass of pesticide. It's not good for you.

You

Wait, why are you drinking that?

Because we don't use it on the fruit anymore and I got a bunch of it that I got to get rid of. You're drinking all the pesticides? Yes, because if we use it on the crops, there would be less for me to drink.

Sorry for labeling you drinking pesticides. No. It kind of makes it circular, doesn't it?

You need to label anything. He's the one that's drinking pesticide.

Pepsicide. I wish it was Pepsicide. Dude, you're broke. All right. You're broke. You didn't. Dude, you're broke and I hate to tell you, but you're broke and we know you're

going to lose the stand. Let him happen. Let him happen. We know you're going to lose the stand and we are going to buy it for pennies after you lose it.

On my birthday? Yes. You talked to me like this on my birthday?

Yeah. I

am going to lose the stand. I think it's ridiculous that I'm broke and going to lose the stand because of your behavior and then you're all going to buy it out for me. Wow. Can't take any ownership of

your choices, huh? Yeah, can I tell

you what I think the real

problem is, Michael? I'd love to hear it. I think the problem is that you demand that all the signs are in your own personal handwriting and you are a perfectionist about calligraphy. Yes.

I wish you could be on the floor with us selling the fruit,

but you're back there toiling on your calligraphy. Yeah. You're just practicing your handwriting. You won't hire my wife. You will not hire my wife. Her name's Venus and I love her very much. And why won't you hire her? She's a strong woman. She's a strong woman. She does have a mouth on her. She's got a mouth and a pot.

I'll tell you why I won't hire Venus. We already have too many people here. One customer in an hour. Four of us here. None of us are doing any real work except for me and my signs. Okay.

So we don't need a fifth person. All they do is attract guys who kill their sons in hot cars. So I don't know if that has to do with your handwriting or not, but I'm bringing my wife tomorrow. Good. Okay. Good. Yeah. Good. And you know what? I'm

bringing my friend.

Yeah. I'm bringing my friend. No, you were not just like, we are a suffering for side of the road fruit stand. We're not bringing two more employees. Do you know how many bananas that is in a day we're going to lose?

Six or seven max.

Six or seven max. This is unacceptable. The way you all treat me. Okay. I spent the past three months preparing the stand, sending an email every morning where I clearly spelled fix things and you thought it was fixings.

I was not on my computer. I was stuck in a web and a spider was responding for me.

Okay. Congratulations for making it out, by the way.

Yeah, I was close. You're lucky I'm alive. You are lucky I'm

alive. Because it was a black widow, hourglass and everything.

She was beautiful. Hourglass

figure. Figure.

Figure and

color.

Absolutely. And color. Everything about it. Okay.

All right. So what's the move?

First of all, I feel like now I know who's responding to your emails and I'm like, okay, so I wasted all that time getting a big pile of logs to throw out in the back. Huh? I thought you wanted a big pile of logs to be in the back, but I guess a black widow was asking

for that. That's right.

That is right. It's the perfect home. You know what you all are doing? You're gaslighting me. Quick. And I feel just like Britney Spears once again. Okay. I'm stuck in this relationship and I just want to

dance. Oh, he's going crazy.

Oh, I'm not going

crazy. You got me crazy. Stop playing that. I

won't

playing it.

stop

Fine.

You guys run it. I'm out. I'm out. You run the stand. Just leave. I'm out. We don't even care if you're here.

I'm out. I'll run the stand. I'm unlocking my bike and I'm biking home.

You don't need to lock that. Well, your front wheel was stole.

Okay.

So good luck.

That's fine. I'm putting my bike up over my shoulder and I'm going to move through small buildings and get and bump people as I'm walking by. You

live 40 miles away from here. You bike here every morning?

I'll hitchhike. Yes, I bike here every morning. I'm healthy.

Man, take a banana. At least take a banana.

They're good for you.

Not one of yours. No, I'll take one of these.

Hey, hey, hey, that's my staff. Banana. Take a free banana. This banana is spoken for.

you. I already took off. I'm

Fuck

going. Fuck you guys. Fuck you guys.

Good luck with the stand. Good luck keeping it alive. A fly. A guy that drinks pesticide but is anti -pesticide.

No, I'm not

anti -pesticide. I want to hoard it for myself. I'm not a fly. I'm a man with a crunchy back who eats flies and perches on

cereal. You're both.

Both of you are the thing you hate.

You say you're the thing and then you're also that thing. No. And I love bananas. Okay?

And I'm starving. You're going to be three clear men. We are the clearest men. We're clear characters. Ever. You're going to leave us?

I feel bad driving you away, but I do think it's the right thing.

Okay,

I'm out. We'll give you one more chance. I don't want to be here. We're going to give you one more chance. If you can sell

one of these pairs to this couple that's walking up right here. And it's the bad pair. You can stay.

Okay? Fine. And let's not forget they're all mixed up

heebie -jeebie style here. They're mixed up heebie -jeebie style. And you got to sell one to this couple.

That's offensive. You know that's short for heeber -jeebrew.

Yeah, look how they're all mixed up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I have been using that

so long and I did not know. You used it when you gave that speech at that temple.

Well, yeah. Some of that walking in that temple did give you the eb -jeebie. You would have thought just the sentence itself was racist. But the term I used within it was too.

I opened the speech with this place gives me the eb -jeebies.

Okay. Here they come. Sell it to them. Sell it to them. Excuse me.

Hi.

Hello.

Yeah. Hi. What are you looking for today? Got a lot of fresh fruit. I guess just what's the freshest, you

know? Yeah. I mean, it looks like you got a lot of fresh fruit. It's got to be the pears. We got some wonderful ripe juicy pears here. Oh,

nice. Are these Bartlets or are these...

The ones over here?

You can't even tell, can you?

You can't even tell what's what. Glenn.

I'm just another shopper. This is Glenn. Why do you

Sorry,

have

to do

that? I'm another shopper.

He put a big mustache and a wig on. Yeah, but

wrong way around.

Pompadour on the mouth. Soul patch on the head.

I'm so sorry. I think I might just go to 7 -Eleven and get a piece of fruit from there.

Are you kidding me? That's the

most disgusting sentence I've

ever

heard. Don't go to 7 -Eleven. Don't go to 7 -Eleven. It seems like

you guys have a lot going on

here. No, no, no. Please. Come here. I'll do a two for one. So you get a Bartlett pear and a regular pear. You guys can split it.

Wow, what's this? A trash corner? I actually like this.

We don't need that.

I am

a customer.

How much are the pears?

The pears. We'll do two for one. So two pears for 75 cents.

Two pears for 75

cents.

Holy crap, honey. Do either of you have a bowl of vinegar on you? I am freaking out.

Let's just sell you the two pears for 75 cents and get you

out of here.

Okay, here's three quarters. Yeah, there you go. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, I guess. Drive safe out there. Is this man okay? He eats flies and also has a disease where he is becoming a fly. I know that sounds crazy.

It's not a big deal. I'm getting better.

He won't take his medication. There's a medication for that? It's experimental, yeah.

But yeah. Okay,

well. You have to cover it in honey and that's the only way he'll even get close to it. Or cover it in flies. Because he likes both things.

I eat flies, but I am a fly. Hey, you know what they say? Hey, you catch more flies with flies. Do they say that?

what you

That's

said at that temple. Oh, yeah.

All right, honey. Well, why don't you pay?

Oh, you did. Okay. Okay. Okay. There you go. All right. Have a good one.

Thank you.

Have a good one. Wow.

You sold those

pears. It's really easy. People stop here because they want a snack while they're driving.

But they're all mixed up and you weren't even eating a banana.

I guess you get to stay. I'm leaving still. No.

Why? You just sold two pears for 75 cents.

Because I need to go.

Hey. This isn't working for me. You know what? Sometimes you do have to sort of cut ties and separate. I've done it three times with different women. And I'm okay with doing that with you. But I want you to know before you go, you can take anything from over here for free. Parting gift for the road.

I guess I'll take a hunk of fish. All right. I

fish over here, too. Hot fish. The only part of the store that has fish.

have

Oh,

God. Hey.

Stinks, Evan.

This trout's on me,

buddy.

Yeah. No. It's on your belly. Okay.

Bye. Where else am I going to cut it up? Good riddance. I'd say don't call me. Don't email me. But you haven't for the past three months.

Oh, I'm stuffed. I don't need any fixings. I'm not going to

email you.