Listen: avocados, love, are not a human right.
I realise this statement leaves me spoiling for a fight,
but Generation X alumni raised in clouds of smoke
remember food fads of the past; to us it’s all a joke.
When I was your age, darling, it was sandwiches or nowt.
With cheese or ham or cheese and ham, and let me leave no doubt:
the days of hummus were not dreamed of; none of us could know
the tasty revolution of the sun-dried tomato.
You could find egg and cress, some brown bread if you really tried.
The super-fancy sandwiches had little prawns inside.
But avocados were a rumour, like the thylacine;
we’d heard of them, but in the kitchen they were rarely seen.
In bathrooms up and down the land the avocado bloomed.
In sinks and tubs of muted green was where we all got groomed.
Our backsides sat on avocado loo seats – some still do.
From porcelain bog to plate and bowl, the fruit’s had work to do.
But now I hear the bleating in the café as I queue,
"No avocado, really? Can’t you get some? Is it true?"
The holy green one’s absence from the menu leaves at least
one generation panicking, and prods my inner beast.
They cost a fortune, five of them could buy my weekly shop.
They fly around the world on fumes, rock solid when they drop.
They’re either rubber-bounceable or brown-tinged fading mush.
If you find one that’s spot-on ripe, then yes, they can be lush.
But avocados, my sweet child, are not a human right.
We lived for years without ingesting them from morn till night.
I know tastes change, and trends, and this one’s marching to its doom:
a memory we’ll laugh at like a snot-green 'smallest room'.
