Fruits of the Fall

One of the joys of the holiday season is seeing the ripening fruits of fall. The Chinese Garden, as a participant in this natural cycle, is displaying several fruits. There's the fairy swarms of crab apples dangling from slender stalks. The pomegranates with their blotchy leathery skins. And who could miss the massive triple D persimmons, bursting like supernovas?

But the fruit that only the Chinese Garden can boast of having is not to be found on the branches of a tree or a bush but on the trunks of people. Indeed, the process of pollination and maturation requires special conditions.

The flower appears only in years of declining revenue and increasing costs. The pollinator is a certain hyperactive species of marketer. Maturation occurs when the desperation level is high enough to saturate the atmosphere.

And then like scarlet mushroom buttons after a rain, the fruits appear full blown on the chests of volunteers and staff, bearing a message for its target animal species, Homo Seekus Dealus. The message is seductive and bypasses the reasoning faculties of its prey - "Visit Free All Year. Ask me how!" Free, free, free! The call draws them in.

But the stars in their eyes turn to cinders as the bargain hunters learn that it's free only after they buy a membership. Alas, they have tasted of the fruit of knowledge: tis useful, but so bitter.