Lemon Week and a Blast From the Past

Hello and happy Monday!  Here at Our Unqualified Opinion we realized we had an excess of lemon-themed posts, itching to be shared. So, since we're really feeling these theme weeks, we decided out of the goodness of our hearts to give an entire week devoted to lemons! It's Lemon Week, y'all!  Now, in case you missed it the first time around - it was the first post on this blog, after all - here's an old gem. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, "Lemons and Life":

Lemons and Life

"If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

What useless advice.  If life gives you lemons? Lemons? Like somehow lemons are the worst thing life could throw at you.  They're some harbinger of disease and pestilence?

No.  Lemons are legit. They're refreshing and ward off scurvy and they're a nice perky yellow color.  People request lemons for their beverages. If life gives you lemons, you're doing more than okay, and you don't need someone else's input on what to do with them.  You figure that out for yourself, because that jerk next to you just wants some lemonade, that's all.

And I know what you're thinking - "But lemons don't taste good by themselves; they're sour. That's why you've got to make them into-" stop.  First of all, they're not all that sour, they're tart.  Lemons are tart.  They're not great on they're own, no, but neither is flour.  Flour by itself is gross, but no one comes up to you and says, "When life gives you flour, make donuts."  I'm a grown human being.  I know what to do with flour and lemons. Make lemon bars.

What people need to know is what to do when life hands you something that's actually awful, like toxic shark flesh.  There's no toxic-shark-flesh-ade, now is there, Pollyanna?  No.  No, and this is a real thing, too.  People in super barren parts of Iceland actually had to find a way to survive off of shark flesh that could kill them.  So you know what they did? They let it rot.  Seriously.  Out in the open air, they just hang sharks out to decay, and after a time, the toxic chemicals in their flesh break down enough to where it's safe to eat.  Not good to eat, just sustenance.  But you'll live.

And that's the lesson we all need, and that we all need to share: When life gives you toxic shark meat, give it some time, you'll be able to choke it down and you'll live.  If you're lucky you might even get a lemon to squirt over it.