juice

a cautionary tale

There are certain experiences in human life that no amount reading, research or wise counsel can prepare you for in advance.

One of them is getting a juicer.

Everything you have heard about getting a juicer is true, but you will not believe it until you have lived it for yourself.

Before getting a juicer, you will ask around. When you say you are thinking about it most of your friends will wince. This is because they own a juicer but haven’t used it for years.

It’s such a pain to clean, they will say.

They will then tell you not to bother buying a new one and offer to give you their old one for free. Then they’ll forget and go on holiday.

This will only make you want your own juicer more.

Probing deeper you will find other people who cannot not live without their juicers and claim to use theirs single day. These juice evangelists will enthral you with their sparkling eyes and glossy hair, demonstrating just how easy it is to cold press a bushel of pomegranates and kiwis with sinewy, tanned arms that will make you want to weep. The fact these people exist only on Instagram won’t occur you, nor will the fact they have housekeepers, make up artists, personal trainers and were clearly sent their juicers for free. The juicefluencers will lavishly recommend a brand name and model which you will optimistically google only to discover it costs £82,000.00 plus VAT.

At this point you will order the juicer that all your friends own. The one they don't use because it’s too hard to clean.

The juicer will arrive promptly and be surprisingly easy to put together!

You will then walk to the farmer’s market and purchase an enormous basket of seasonal fruits and veg and spend three days wafting about your home with a mason jar full of blueberry-beetroot-apple-chard juice feeling smug and slithery in your jean shorts. On the fourth day you will notice a weird smell in the kitchen and ignore it, focussing instead on how economical and sustainable your life has become since acquiring a juicer.

On the fourth day, as you are fishing bits of old broccoli from the bottom of the crisper and talking about the scourge of food waste, one of your family members will say it smells like there’s a dead rat trapped in the kitchen pipe again and suggest calling the emergency plumber. You will ignore this and whisper positive thoughts to your microbiome.

On the fifth day you will decide it’s probably time to clean the juicer.

Cleaning the juicer will take approximately two days, five months and seventy two years. At the end of it you will be a husk of your former self and be unable to speak in full sentences. You kitchen pipe will be backed up and you will have to call the emergency plumber who will charge you £82,000 plus VAT.

Six months later you will be at a cafe and a girlfriend will say, I’m thinking about getting a juicer. You will wince.

Many experiences in life are like this.