The Lemon Juice Incident

I wrote a previous post about an unfortunate situation involving orange juice. There is an earlier incident in my marriage involving lemon juice.

Me in our Stanford married student apartment

Forty years ago, in the summer of 1978, my husband and I both had clerkships (what law students call internships) in Los Angeles. We had been married just a few months, and the only city in which we had both been able to find summer jobs was Los Angeles, so that is where we went.

Hubby in our Stanford married student apartment

In May 1978, we took a weekend trip to LA to find summer housing. We ended up subletting an apartment in married student housing for a seminary in Pasadena. It was one bedroom, one bath, and a living area that was open to the kitchen area. This sublet was about the same size as our married student housing at Stanford. However, the rent in the Pasadena apartment was lower than our Stanford apartment, which is indicative that the Pasadena apartment was not as nice.

The rooms were in a row, with windows only on one side of the apartment. As I recall the windows faced west, so the afternoon sun beat into the rooms, even with the shades drawn. There was one window air conditioning unit in the main living area, but it was impossible to get any air flow through the apartment, because of its design. It was always hot.

We were gone every weekday from morning until night working in downtown Los Angeles. But in the evenings and on weekends we sweltered.

One weekend a month, my husband had Naval Reserve duty and took our only car. I was stuck in the stifling apartment, alone, with no transportation, and no place to go within walking distance.

(Well, I could walk to the bus stop, but the apartment complex was in an area of town in which young men sat outside on the hoods of their cars and catcalled at every woman who walked between the apartment and the bus stop. So taking the bus to escape the apartment was not an enjoyable option.)

Back to the lemon juice incident. One hot afternoon, my husband and I were sitting in our sublet Pasadena apartment trying to stay cool. Each of us had some project underway, though I don’t recall what we each worked on. Mostly we were sweating.

My husband went into the kitchen and rummaged around.

“Are you fixing something to drink?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“May I have some?”

“Okay.” He walked over to me, hands hidden. “Close your eyes and open your mouth,” he said.

“What is it?”

“You’ll see.”

“No,” I said, “tell me what it is.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

There is only one good answer when your spouse of less than a year asks if you trust him, so I said, “Yes, I trust you.” I closed my eyes and opened my mouth.

As you might have guessed, it was a spoonful of lemon juice. Pure, unadulterated, unsweetened lemon juice.

I haven’t trusted him the same since. Maybe in big things, but not in the little things of life.

Still, it has been forty years, so I might forgive him soon.

When have you been subjected to an unfortunate practical joke?