Getting Acquainted:

Congratulations on your purchase of this grapefruit. Make sure to keep this manual on hand for later reference. Be sure to read the manual thoroughly to get the most out of your purchase and abide by warranty terms (see warranty terms).
 

General FAQs:

What is a grapefruit?

            A citrus orb

Where does a grapefruit grow?

On a grapefruit tree. It is beautiful and hardy, but be gentle to it.

Is this fruit related to grapes?

            No

Where can I buy a grapefruit?

            From your local grapefruit peddler, or your mother.

What are the varieties of grapefruit?

            Red, orange, yellow, ripe, unripe, rotten.
 

Visual Guide:

Parts of a Grapefruit

Standard operation of the grapefruit:

1. Grab a knife by the unsharp side.
2. Locate the nipples of the grapefruit on either axis and cut between them into two hemispheres.
3. Purchase a grapefruit spoon online and wait for grapefruit spoon to arrive to eat the desiccated halves of fruit.

Setting the time and calendar:

1. You come into puberty at age thirteen. You borrow your mother’s bra and stuff it with kitchen towels until it fits.
2. You wear a corset in your high school musical and a man puts a five down your blouse by the stage door. It was your friend’s father. You do not tell your mother.
3. The man who becomes your husband holds your breasts, one in each hand, moving his palms like scales.
4. You forget about your breasts until you get pregnant. Veins like blue rivers criss cross them. They get hard. Heavy.
5. Sag.

This fruit is equipped with a timer mode. To activate timer mode:

1. Conduct a self-breast exam and find a lump.
2. Go into a ten-day period of denial and bargaining. Buy healthy food at grocery store, including grapefruit.
3. Put grapefruit on the counter and hold it in your hand. It is lumpless, round.
4. Throw the grapefruit against the wall.           

About the timer.

When you switch the timer on, you will set in motion a chain reaction of phone calls to physicians and your child. She will not know how to explain it to your grandson.

This fruit is equipped with an alarm mode. To activate alarm mode:

1. Press your temples during alarm mode. In the waiting room, find suspicious freckles on your arms to count.
2. Have mammography performed. A man will put stickers on your breasts to mark them.
3. Be uncomfortable naked. Think about the first time you took off your bra with a boy at fourteen. Pretend this is a ’72 Ford Torino. Pretend your radiologist is Greg Talson.
4. Do not have a panic attack. Hold onto the bars. It will be over soon.

To deactivate the alarm:

Warning! Alarm mode is impossible to turn off. Do not turn on alarm mode.

This fruit is equipped with countdown mode. To activate countdown mode:

1. Wait.
2. Wait for an uncertain amount of time.
3. Wait until you can feel your name being read on a report by an attending nurse somewhere giving follow-up phone calls in a morning-coffee chirp. Feel the ping.

This fruit is equipped with stopwatch mode. To activate stopwatch mode:

1. Wait for your life to start again after.
2. Let your child take care of you. Marvel at role reversal. She will play Scrabble and cheat, which is not reversed.
3. Your mouth will burn. You’ll vomit almost everything. Nothing will taste good.
4. In a long time, something will sound good again. Your daughter will have left, so go by yourself to buy it.
5. Eat your grapefruit with brown sugar, broiled, like you did at that B&B six years ago.
6. Pretend it is six years ago.
7. Pretend you feel safe. Try on the word survivor. Put it aside and stare at yourself in the mirror and wonder what is inside.

Troubleshooting:

If the display of the grapefruit is blank:

The initial factory setting of the grapefruit is blank. Smooth. A chalkboard.
Consider adding artificial grapefruits. Get opinions and wish you hadn’t.

 

Warranty Terms

There is no warranty.

Additional note: Insurance is a bitch.

Final note: The grapefruit pictured in advertisements may not match your experience of grapefruit. It is not a grapefruit. Please write to the address of your deity, congressional representative, health insurance executive (not included), if you have complaints or concerns.

You will have complaints and concerns.

The complaints will taste sour, and your instinct will be to sugar them, to make them tasteful to others when they watch. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.