I have a life-long pathological fear of orange. This does not include the color orange. This has to do with the smell and flavor of the actual fruit. I do not feel the same aversion to lemons and grapefruit. This aversion does include oranges, orange juice, tangerines, mandarins, clementines, orange soda, orangina, orange tang, orange scented candles, orange scented sunscreen (that was an unfortunate error), and fake orange flavor or any kind, including orange flavored candy. This does not mean orange colored candy. I am not prejudiced to the color and would not pass up an orange M&M, (I think I am a basically rational person). It is just the smell that makes me physically ill. For example, if someone opens an orange on the bus I am riding I will do my best to relocate while trying not to look like the village crazy.
I know how to write about this because I know what the typical questions will be. “Are you afraid of all citrus?” No. “What about the color?” No. “What about tangerines?” Yes, tangerines. Yes orange skittles! Yes orange furniture polish!! Yes orange scented anything!!! I have spent more time in movie theaters trying to separate the orange sour patch kids from my bag in the dark than I have watching the actual movies. In elementary school I was infamous for this fear. Kids would chase me around the cafeteria with open oranges. My friends are hip to my orange challenges. In very recent history a friend of mine knocked over a beer glass trying to reach and remove an orange from the glass I had just been served, while screaming "Noooooo!!!" all the way. My mother remembers that I have always disliked oranges and orange juice, but she is not blessed with the long-term memory of an elephant. It is more likely that I had some kind of traumatic experience with oranges. I recently, and for the first time, heard of someone with the same fear of oranges and it had to do with his being ill after some spoiled orange juice. I would guess that it was a similar trigger in my case, but I remember no such event. According to my brother’s memory, one day when I was two years old, I put down my glass of orange juice and said; “Orange juice is for big girls and I’m a little girl,” and never touched the stuff again. Perhaps it has to do with a deep psychological fear of growing up. But, to be honest I doubt it. It probably made me queasy one day before that for whatever reason and that was it. And as Darwin would say, my aversion is in some way necessary for my continued survival. Perhaps I just saw The Godfather at a very young age. Every time you see an orange in those movies someone gets shot or has a heart attack.
If I had to explain it further, I will say that I reasonably understand that lemons and oranges have a similar bouquet and I understand that it’s strange that I love the flavor of lemon. What’s better than a lemon meringue pie or a cold, fresh squeezed lemonade in the summer? I am told by many how refreshing the scent of an orange is to them. The difference between lemmons and oranges to me is equivalent to the flavor of something good and fresh versus something rotten. As an example, at my old workplace, we had a genius in the kitchen. Julie’s lunch was the highlight of my day back when I worked in the suburbs and there were certain salads and entrées I always looked forward to. One day she was on vacation and the substitute chef decided to jazz up a cranberry dressing with a dash of orange flavor. My first ignorant reaction to the change in flavor was to yell that the chicken on the salad had gone bad. To me, it tasted rotten. No one else complained and upon further examination I realized that it was just the addition of some orange pulp. I could not continue to eat it.
I have had a few small triumphs over my fear. My new job requires me to prepare juice and coffee for meetings and I have managed to pour out leftover orange juice into the sink without complaint. But my greatest triumph yet is that I was told of an orange clogging the garbage disposal and was still able to flick the disposal switch and churn the smell all over the kitchen so as to investigate. So I gagged a little in the process? I still see it as a triumph, however small. But I have to say that the day my job requires me to eat, lick, or for too prolonged a time, smell an orange, that will be my last day at the job.
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