klugness

Imagining Things

Of Juicy Bits of Orange and Two-Stroke Motorcycle Engines

November 13, 2022 by Klugmeister

I recall being a teenager in the 1980s and being confused by certain things my dad would do. Later, as a much older person, I thought more deeply about it and decided that what my dad did might have made sense given the benefit of hindsight.

Allow me to explain.

In the 1980s my dad would occasionally go to the grocery store and pick up a few items, such as orange juice. Much to the chagrin of me and my brothers, he would inadvertently bring home the orange juice that had the juicy bits of orange—you know, the little pulpy orange bits that were mixed into the juice as if they belonged there. We found ourselves longing for pure orange juice, with no floating bits of anything. Why couldn't Daddy read the labels more carefully? It was a problem.

This image of a glass of orange juice and a motorcycle was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

So yes, it's easy to get frustrated with the type of sloppy shopper who doesn't read the labels carefully. This type of careless behavior leads to ridiculous accidental purchases like whole coffee beans, turkey hot dogs, earwax flavored candies, and Troll bogeys.

Getting back to the juicy bits, as far as I recall we never asked Daddy why he bought the subpar orange juice—we just assumed that he'd bought it by accident, since what rational person would deliberately buy the icky, polluted orange juice?

But what if—follow me closely here—what if he bought that orange juice on purpose? Perhaps the orange juice that we viewed as tainted actually brought back fond memories from his childhood? Maybe his mom prepared fresh squeezed orange juice for him when he was a kid, so it had those juicy bits of orange in there naturally? Maybe drinking that orange juice brought back treasured memories and a sense of nostalgia, just like the ratatouille dish did for the grouchy old food critic in the movie Ratatouille?

This explanation seems so simple now that I thought of it. Apparently some mysteries need to ferment for a while before the fog begins to dissipate. Maybe I wasn't ready for the answer when I was a teenager. Maybe I couldn't handle the truth? Ha!

There may be generational forces at work here. People from my dad's generation (born in the 1930s) may enjoy orange juice with juicy bits of orange, while people from the baby boom generation (e.g., me and my brothers) would much prefer if the extraneous material were removed, leaving nothing but pure juice, thank you very much. Maybe there are things like this that define and separate each succeeding generation?

Following this logic, my generation may also have nostalgic notions that don't translate to subsequent generations. For example, I recall being around dirtbikes as a teenager, and I began to associate the burnt gasoline/oil smell that two-stroke motorcycle engines produced with the fun and excitement of being around dirtbikes. Since then, in order to meet environmental standards, the motorcycle industry has largely graduated to four-stroke engines that are better able to burn off almost all of the gasoline vapors, rather than releasing residual hydrocarbons into the atmosphere (which leads to the burnt gasoline smell and associated hydrocarbon pollution of two-stroke engines).

If I were able to smell the burnt gasoline smell now, it would probably bring back fond memories of dirtbikes from my teen years. Yes, I'll admit it—I actually regard the burnt gasoline smell as a glorious fragrance rather than a "smell." A group of millenials, on the other hand, would likely squinch their noses at the smell and immediately head off to Starbucks, just as my brothers and I gagged when our dad brought home the orange juice from hell. The millenials, once safely in the arms of their beloved mermaid, would place concerned phone calls to (1) the EPA, (2) the volunteer environmentalists who take trash out of the ocean, and (3) Yogi Bear. (Oh shoot—millenials don't know who Yogi Bear is. Never mind. Sorry, our fact-checker is at a motorcycle race.)

And the principle extends from smells to sounds. For example, the high-pitched, urgent sound of 600cc motorcycles racing around a track calls to me like a siren song, urging me to get closer so I can not only hear them but see them too. In contrast, a group of millenials hearing that sound would immediately follow Monty Python's advice and "run away!"

Except they don't know who Monty Python is!