There are times when we accumulate so much information a subject that it must needs burst forth and splat onto the page like squashed blueberry. The following is not a public service announcement or message. It is just overspill.
I discovered that blueberries will make you see better, will unclog your arteries, and help you lose weight. Doctors even say it will help fight diseases and increase your memory. I started looking into this as a matter of course - I was working on a project. But I soon found out that I had become rather fascinated with the subject.
So, as a direct consequence which any self-diagnosed OCD sufferer will immediately understand, I sallied forth onto the public thoroughfare in search of these blueberry products. I have always liked blueberries. I liked them in the way that people like any fruit - from time to time, generally for and generally not against, but not over-the-top and obsessive about it.
My thinking was that Serbia has a lot of fresh fruit production and blueberries were a goodly part of it. In fact, I discovered many blueberry products only here, even if the recollection of my grandmother's blueberry pie still brings a pang of nostalgia. So I expected to find a lot of blueberry stuff to buy and try and employ to anti-oxidize myself.
And yet...
I think I have been into every possible store where blueberries might be sold. I look for them; I ask for them. Most of the Fruit and Veg Professionals (the ones who have mastered the difficult art of weighing food and stickering it) usually looked at me without answering. Some responses were:
- No.
- It's winter.
- Ask my colleague.
- What?
I finally located some at one Maxi shop, but they were on the edge of extinction by the time I got them home. I am still looking when I walk into grocery stores, but my hopes of finding them are diminishing.
Supply and demand is viscous. If I look and search and quest for blueberries and ultimately come up with an empty shopping basket, eventually I will start to lose interest (in my case it might take a few months) and then, in the end, I may stop altogether and forget about them. And if I stop looking and asking, shopkeepers will think I (i.e., the Consumer) could not be bothered about the blueberry. And they will not even think about stocking them.
In the meantime, no one takes stock of the amount of blueberry juice and jam and muffins which get sold every day and adduce thereupon that people actually LIKE blueberries.
But ok... What's the point? There is nothing unusual about all of this. Absolutely not. As I said before, this is overspill of information. But something about the blueberry and finding it and its benefits and taste remains with me. So I wanted to share it.
But since we do not have easy access to blueberries to enhance our memories, you can take comfort in the fact that you probably forget having read this appeal for blueberries a few minutes after closing the page.
Although you may find yourself craving some blueberry barbeque sauce....