M.M.M.

When my uncle was a jockey, he ate only grapefruit for a week. In his mind, it helped him stay thin. The house smelled like an orchard. The horse didn't seem to mind either - fast est steed in his county, it seemed to function better on an all fruit diet, too. It was apricots and plucots all winter while they were in training, they would eat them together. My uncle was German & the horse was also from the Rhineland. Word was that the forests and hills there bred more than just insanity.

They bred companionship between man and beast - and an abiding passion for fruit - fermented fruit, too. Plutarch was the first horse to be kicked out of a bar in my county. Too much of a good thing makes you wince. My uncle began to notice his horse was looking slimmer and slimmer and he liked it. Less leg cramps that way. And the fillies were beginning to notice him - not flirting exactly but an ear waggle here, a tail flounce there. Life was good until the widow Cameron came to town. She sported a horse named Betty, and that mare was a dandy.

Betty and her mistress invited Plutarch and my uncle to dinner and straw. That was a night to be a tawdry moment in history - at least, that was what Betty thought. Plutarch was flipping his tail flirtatiously at Betty's mare before he was even out of the trailer. Plute nickered to her in German but she didn't know more than a few words. What he wanted to ask her was if she would be his mane squeeze but then thought better of it.

My uncle was brazen enough to go straight for a kiss, with hardly an introduction.

The fact is, while the only fruit diet has its high points, a low point is its effect on the digestive system. My uncle, he probably didn't have a lot of time before the other sort of nature called; this made him forthright as a matter of course, it was a habit by now. This time it backfired. She married him, and that was how Mean Maria Cameron made it into this family. Now eat your breakfast.