For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE NARROWLY ESCAPES INJURY FROM FLYING GRAPEFRUIT

Feb. 11, 2009, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Around noon today, while carrying a basket of laundry across the driveway, Susan Clarke narrowly escaped being pelted by an armada of airborne grapefruit. The grapefruit, seven total which now lay in various states of squishiness in the driveway, were loosed by sudden high winds and whipping rain that unexpectedly shook up what had been a bright, sunny, but cold morning. In the melee, wayward citrus headed Clarke’s way from a neighbor’s tree on the other side of the fence.

This isn’t the first time the rebellious produce has posed a hazard for Clarke in the week since she moved into her new apartment. Over the weekend, while she and her boyfriend unloaded a heavy wooden cabinet from the back of her truck, he was walking backwards with the furniture when his foot struck something and he nearly tripped. Though he reported that it felt like he kicked rat, it was in fact another felled overripe grapefruit. The grapefruit was chastised, but obviously failed to send the message back to its brothers on the tree not to mess with the new tenants next door.

“I have very little experience interacting with nature,” explains Clarke, who has dwelled in urban areas for 20 years. “Most places I’ve lived, the main concerns have been keeping bums out of the building, not running out of hot water, and not falling through the hole in the floor.” By comparison, the sassy grapefruit are a rather quaint nuisance.

In 1687, renowned scientific mind Sir Isaac Newton had his own cross to bear in regards to fruit in motion. His chance meeting with the business end of an apple led to the publishing of his treatise Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which introduced his theories of motion and gravity. Likewise, Clarke’s experience with flying grapefruit led her to write a press release, which slightly fewer people would read. She and Newton also have a shared love of long, flowing wigs.

In Clarke’s undisclosed new neighborhood in Los Angeles, there are several retailers of Mexican-made Fresca. The Mexican-made version of the famous grapefruit soda is far superior to the domestic version as it is made with cane sugar rather than corn syrups. Clarke has plans to stand under the grapefruit tree and ominously drink a bottle of Fresca to send a very clear message to the tree.

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