Never say no to a gift shark

Being less than fully woke I eat few avocados. Nevertheless, last summer I wrote a magazine article describing my method of destoning one. In case you missed it, it goes like this. Having halved the fruit along the horizontal axis with my all-purpose Chinese chopping knife, I remove the upper half of the avocado in the manner of a surgeon removing a cranium. I then raise the knife above my head, shout banzai or some similar approximation to the self-exhortatory scream that is popular among practitioners of the martial arts, and bring down the blade. It sinks into the stone, which can then be lifted easily from the flesh.

My method is not only practical, as I’m sure you’ll agree, but also jolly good fun, and I hoped that by sharing it I might spread a little happiness in these Trumpian days. But it seems that, in one breast at least, I did the opposite.

For one reader was so concerned by what she read, so worried that I might miss the avocado with my all-purpose Chinese chopping knife and inadvertently slice off a thumb or worse, that she resolved to protect me from myself. And to this end she sent me, out of that warm and generous place the goodness of her heart, an Avo Shark.

It arrived this week. I have it in front of me as I type and, on the off-chance that there are people out there unfamiliar with the Avo Shark – improbable, I realise, but it is the duty of us writer johnnies to entertain all possibilities – I shall describe it.

One end of it could be said to resemble, in a dim light, if one had of drink taken, a shark’s nose. The nose is formed of a not-especiallysharp blade, but one that still comes with a plastic guard around it. That guard has been moulded in the form of a fin to reinforce the shark motif.

The Avo Shark is a uniquely dedicated device. Show it an orange and it shrugs its shoulders. Show it an avocado, however, and it salutes and goes to it. The not-especially-sharp blade halves the fruit. Then the inside of the shark’s head fits over one end of the stone, and a sliding device in the handle fits up against the other end. And lo, the stone is gripped and can be removed without risk to your thumb or your worse.

The Avo Shark’s tail now comes into play. This is a metal protrusion resembling a miniature cycle helmet. It will scoop the flesh from your avocado then mash it to a pulp, as, I am told, is popular in circles woker than the ones I move in.

My benefactress thoughtfully removed the price tag from the Avo Shark, but I am churl enough to have looked it up and found that it retails for $20 or so in all good gift shops – oh how the oxymorons flow.

So there you have it, the Avo Shark. There remains only the decision of what to say about it.

Should I say that it illustrates the limitless human propensity for inventing spurious needs then gratifying them? Or that every last Avo Shark will have found a landfill while the knife, the fork and spoon go marching on? Or that the Avo Shark’s the sort of thing that decadent societies make when on the cusp of collapse? Of course not.

For the shark was a gift, and it would be rude to look it in the mouth. I’ll say only that kindness will endure, and I was touched.