The Traveling Watermelon That Kills

Last week when my cousins visited us from Canada we had several dinners with them. One day at my dad’s house, one day at my sister’s house, one day at my house, so on and so forth. The evening that we had them over at my house we prepared a simple barbeque medley finished off by an array of yummy desserts. My father in law brought a beautiful whole watermelon; but because there was way too many desserts to choose from we decided to hold off on cutting the watermelon. Since we were getting together the following night at my sister’s house I told her I’d bring the watermelon over to her house, which I did.

The next evening as we finished a feast at my sister’s we started to bring out the desserts. Again there were so many to choose from so the watermelon got left behind. “That’s ok, I said, I’ll bring it to Maine for our vacation next week.” We laughed at how the watermelon kept traveling.

That's me wearing  the traveling dress

It reminded me of a dress that I had that would travel every summer from my house and then to my friend’s house. We got a lot of use out of that dress; hopefully the watermelon won’t be around from year to year. I’m pretty certain that it won’t because in many Portuguese circles the older generation believes that watermelon kills.

What? Watermelon Kills, you say?      

It’s actually quite hysterical because as the story goes apparently my dad’s brother’s girlfriend’s sister’s aunt’s nephew’s brother’s daughter’s friend’s uncle’s grandfather’s grandmother’s niece’s friend died after they drank wine, brushed their  teeth, picked their nose, and ate watermelon. Bizarre right? Of course it is, because it NEVER happened but it’s a funny ongoing thing because during any Portuguese get together you always hear the older generation telling a tale about the watermelon that killed so and so.

We’ve had a lot of laughs that evening about the watermelon that kills, maybe that’s why it keeps travelling with us and not getting eaten.