There is a war raging in your olfactory canals on a daily basis which I dare say you are completely unaware of. It occurs in your home, in the restaurants you frequent, even in your car, all completely unbeknown to you. Our senses are becoming a casualty and it is time to end this conflict once and for all, damnit! Lay down your axes against the trees and sheath your knives used on the fruit they bear. Mark my words though, ambivalence will only leave you smelling the stench of the battlefield.

Soldier planting a lemon bomb
War is not the answer.
I like to secretly believe that there is an all out war going on between the citrus fruits and the trees of this planet. Yes, I know it smells of the insane ranting of a lunatic with a computer, but remember, "A sane person in an insane world would still be considered insane by everyone else." I have always thought that citrus fruits are the pushiest fruit in the world and are secretly trying to take over. They seem to be infiltrating every product I am a consumer of, and I sure as hell didn't invite them. They are staging a hostile corporate product takeover and the only ones doing anything about it, ironically, are the very ones that bore them in the first place: the trees.

Lemon ninja with sword
Beware the lemon ninja ambush!
I for one have been a lifetime staunch supporter of the trees and their cause in this epic war. Okay, yes, I am from Washington State (The Evergreen State) which has its share of trees, so maybe I am a bit biased. However, my reason is more that a tree has never attempted to surreptitiously get into something I'm eating. For instance, when I order fish or seafood with water or a diet soda to drink, I feel like it's a freakin lemon ninja ambush. I have never been ambushed by a tree and thus I have a greater respect for them I suppose.

Lemon grenade
Get a different colored straw or something.
I believe the lemon is the general of the citrus fruit army and their secret headquarters is the beverage industry. Lemons seem to have a tight hold on that industry and I find it annoying that they have secured the spot as the "universal diet indicator." When I go to a restaurant and order a diet soda, the waiter/waitress ALWAYS puts a lemon in it so they can know which one of the drinks on the tray is diet. I appreciate that they're trying to deliver the correct drink to me, but at the same time it's counterintuitive to then change that drink order to a diet LEMON soda. In my opinion that is changing my drink order without consulting me on the matter first. I didn't order a diet lemon soda, and I can always taste the lemon no matter how subtle it is or how fast I take it out of the glass. It isn't like it's a tasteless fruit; it's one of the most potent flavorings out there, so much so that if you try and have it by itself your body goes into pucker convulsions. You can't just throw a lemon in a soda just because you want to or because you can't for the life of you keep a stupid drink order straight. That is forceful lemoning!!

When life give you lemons, squeeze it in someone's eye and haul ass!
I swear the next waiter/waitress that pulls this crap will pay.
I find it equally as offensive when I get a lemon in a glass of water, because there is no such thing as diet water. I just feel like they are trying to push ghetto lemonade on me because they know their water tastes like old toilet water. I ordered water, not ultra-diluted ghetto lemonade, but thanks anyway. I know that I'm supposed to make lemonade when life hands me lemons, but sometimes I just want a fucking glass of water and that's all!

Tree-shaped pine car air fresheners
Something about this just wreaks of extremism.
Trees have never even gotten close to trying to forcefully infiltrate my beverage or food, which I believe garners them more respect. I'm afraid I can't say the same for the lemons, which seem to be everywhere just willy nilly. I believe the pine tree is the general of the tree army and their secret headquarters is the automotive industry, specifically since any car that has gone bad is referred to as a lemon. There seems to be no positive way that lemons can ever infiltrate the automotive industry and that seems very telling to me. In addition, most car air fresheners seem to be pine scented or in the shape of a tree, even if they are a different scent, like a secret code or something. Furthermore cars produce carbon dioxide, which, conveniently, trees require to survive and flourish.

Ajax and Pine-Sol cleaners
I just want my floors to be clean, that's all.
The current primary battleground (other than your nose) seems to be all cleaning products. All cleaning products seem to be available in some kind of citrus or tree scent. I don't really think that there is any advantage to having my floors lemon or pine scented, so there must be something else going on here. I mean when was the last time you got down on your hands and knees and really smelled your floor? Who gives a crap what it smells like and if you can actually smell it in the first place I would suggest you simply need to clean more often. At my floor's dirtiest I don't think I even detected an odor of ANY kind, so I fail to see the reason I now need it to smell like a forest or a freakin fruit salad.

Lemon scent, orange scent, lime scent, pine scent, sandal wood scent, cedar scent. The amount of things that are either some kind of citrus or wood smell is way out of control. It's just all way too over the top to just be normal everyday scenting. What started this whole tree/citrus fruit contention? Maybe the citrus fruits are mad at the trees because the trees banished them off their branches? Perhaps because of the ejection from the trees, the citrus fruits are trying to get back at the trees by taking over the cleaning industry. Control of the cleaning industry is all about maintaining control over the amount of dirt that there is in the world. Trees grow in dirt. Think about it!

Lemon and lime stitched together
Genetically engineered super soldiers is what this war has come to.
It's all escalating so fast. I was at a party last month and someone was serving a dessert called "lemon bombs," which led to an embarrassing display of me running and ducking for cover under a table. The other day I saw a commercial for a particular lemon/lime fusion drink. The beverage industry war machine is creating genetically engineered super soldiers now?

I refuse to continue to live in fear. The time has come, people, to stop being a casualty of one of the most pungent wars this planet has ever smelled, and to finally give peace a chance.

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