Foreign citrus has chosen the dark side of the force and joined the ranks of terrorists.

I know. I'm as stunned as you are by this revelation.

Oh yeah, one moment you think you know a family of fruit, and the next moment you realize it was all a fa�ade, that They Were Living A Lie. I'm still in shock.

I found out The Truth About Citrus while crossing into the U.S. today.

Security has been tight at the border for a while now; for about a month or so an unarmed soldier has been coming out of the Customs Houses and searching vehicles entering the U.S. while the vehicle's driver is questioned by a border guard.

Well, they're on an even higher alert today because not one but TWO soldiers tossed my car today as I went through the 20 questions routine.

Everyone was quite relaxed and almost apologetic about this. I mean, I'm a 50-year-old, white-haired, blue-eyed citizen of Canada who's been crossing the border here for over 25 years, so I don't exactly fit the profile of your basic terrorist.

I was itching to ask them why the extra soldier, what had triggered the extra security, but past experience has taught me that you aren't allowed to ask questions at the border, you're only supposed to answer them. I kept my lips zipped.

And THEN I learned the truth.

"You got any citrus?" the border guard asked.

"Yep," I said.

He immediately stiffened. Mr. Nice Guy was gone, replaced by a tense, nervous man. The soldiers stiffened. They redoubled their efforts rummaging through my groceries. They gingerly held up my bag of oranges.

"Those oranges got a Sunkist sticker?" he demanded.

"Does that make a difference?" I asked.

He replied in the affirmative. A Sunkist sticker meant they were free to enter the country. Anything else was considered a foreign orange, and foreign oranges could not enter the U.S.

If they were foreign oranges I either had to turn back into Canada or agree to have them destroyed there at the Customs. I had never heard this before.

From the solemn, tense demeanor of the two soldiers and the border guard, the nervous way the one soldier was holding my oranges at arm's length, I immedately inferred there's a Foreign Citrus Terrorism Conspiracy.

AHA! THAT'S why they had the extra soldier on today, eh!

Citrus!

Fortunately, my oranges had Sunkist stickers and we were allowed to proceed on our merry way. But this story COULD have had a much less happy ending.

I could have unknowingly been lured by the foreign citrus cunningly lounging in the produce section of my small Canadian grocery store into who knows what dastardly plot. No one has ever asked me about citrus before. I didn't realize citrus Has A Dark Side.

So, in the interests of saving you from the grief of being duped by some unscrupilous members of the fruit family (I mean, really, none of us want to unwittingly become a servant of the evil axis, right?) I have shared today's unnerving experience.

Remember, Foreign Citrus Are Our Enemies.

Be on the lookout, 'kay?

--Marn