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Reddit"What's this?" the grocery cashier asked me, holding a tan melon at eye level. "I don't know how much to charge you, because I don't know what to call this."
"That," I answered, trying to hide my surprise, "is called a cantaloupe."
Taking my groceries to the car, I shrugged the whole thing off as a fluke. It's theoretically possible, I thought, stowing the last bag on the back seat, that a boy could pass the first 16 years of his life without cantaloupe consciousness.
A scant two weeks later, however, a subsequent trip to the supermarket brought an even deeper shock. I was once again at the register, waiting for a price check on paper towels, when I heard the scanner at the neighboring checkout come to a sudden halt.
"What do you call these?" asked the cashier, a young woman in high school.
"Honey," said the woman at the counter, shaking her head, "those are strawberries. Haven't you ever eaten a fresh strawberry?"
The cashier answered no, smiling without alarm.
The customer bolted from line and dashed to the produce section, returning with two more pints of berries.
