Queer n There	Queer n There Archive

Upon first opening the news release from "Mariel's Fancy Fruits," Guide staffers grew outraged at the implied anti-gay mockery. Who fancies being called a "fruit," whatever the grade? A call to state authorities was in the making to report an incident of hate-speech, or at least insensitivity, when a closer reading of the press release-- actually a reprinted newspaper article-- revealed a surprising twist.

"Grad Becomes Business Owner," announces the headline of the clipping from The Elms Today, the newspaper of the College of Our Lady of the Elms. "Though many college graduates are nervously involved in the job-search process," the unsigned article reports, "senior Salina Popoli is looking forward to starting her own business." Read on and you find out that the new venture began with a homework assignment in Prof. David Kimball's sales class, in which students were to devise a make-believe pitch to their fellow students. "Because she had completed an internship at Simos Produce, Springfield," the article continues, "Salina chose to 'sell' fruit boxes to her classmates."

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It was all pretend. But at Our Lady of the Elms, idle dreams have a way of coming true. Spurred by her own sales presentation and "[b]uilding on experience gained through working part-time for two years, Salina did more study about fruit and produce." She took fruit photos and hired a web designer. "I thought of creative names such as 'Citrus Blast' and 'Applelicious,'" Salina explains to The Elms Today, whose motto is "I have chosen the way of truth."

It turns out that Salina found more than succulent cherries and blemish-free bananas while interning at the produce company: another source of encouragement leading to her founding Mariel's Fancy Fruits was Tony Delis, who the article says is the "owner of Simos Produce and Salina's future father-in-law." So what first seemed the sour grapes of an anti-homosexual slur turns out to be a plum of a heterosexual love story. Here's to the happy couple.