APPLE OF THEIR EYE
Truro couple mull auctioning 'Mr. Happy'

by James Keller

Why is his apple smiling?

Tony Burns isn't sure, but he's still amazed with his happy apple.

"I was working in my backyard last weekend, and I happened to look up and I saw this thing staring at me," the Truro man said Friday, referring to the apple his wife Michelle named Mr. Happy.

His Cortland apple, now a dull auburn colour and with wrinkled skin, was smiling at him.

Two dime-sized rotten spots make up the eyes, a third stands in for the nose, and four small marks curve up into a grin.

At first, he thought it was a joke.

"I thought my neighbour Calvin was over and poked it with a pencil or something," said the 36-year-old Halifax Regional Municipality employee.

"But when I got up close to it, I could see that's the way the bad spots formed."

His wife thinks she knows the source of Mr. Happy's smirk.

"We looked at it that day, that it was our sign from God to keep smiling and to be happy," Ms. Burns said.

Not wanting Mr. Happy to rot away, Mr. Burns put it in the freezer.

When he takes the apple out of the house, he wraps it in a plastic bag and puts it inside a small white plastic thermos with a maroon lid.

He isn't sure what he'll do with his new homegrown friend, but he and his wife might try cashing in.

In November, a Florida woman auctioned off a decade-old grilled cheese sandwich on EBay she said looked like the Virgin Mary for $28,000 US.

"It was just a family joke until we saw the thing in the paper about that woman," said Ms. Burns. "We thought it was so funny people would show interest in something like that."

But Ms. Burns said selling an apple might be tricky.

"With toast, it dries, but an apple is going to rot," she said. "We've been doing our best, putting it in the freezer, but I'm not sure how it will last."

There's been other weird food selling on the Internet, as well.

Soon after the Florida sandwich sold, a kosher grilled cheese sandwich resembling the Ten Commandments tablets brought in $97 US. And an Ontario man put up a year-old fish stick on EBay in late November, claiming a deep fryer burned in the image of Jesus. He took it down before it sold.

"You never know," Mr. Burns said, about whether his apple would sell.