It's Probably a Folk Thing

Hook:
There you are, standing in the grocery store, surrounded by bins of green watermelons. You knock. You thump. You lift one like it’s a newborn and whisper, “Are you the chosen one?”
Someone next to you is doing the same thing. You make eye contact.
It’s a silent competition.
It’s a public act of fruit-based divination.
It’s probably a folk thing.
[Intro Music]
Host:
Welcome to It’s Probably a Folk Thing – the podcast about everyday experiences that turn out to be older, weirder, and way more meaningful than we realized. I’m Aaron Crawford, and today we’re peeling back the layers on one of the summer’s most mysterious rituals: choosing a watermelon.
And hey: a special shout-out to Trey, who helped me thump through a few ideas until this one sounded just right.
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Segment 1: The Gospel According to Thump
There’s no official guidebook for watermelon selection. No state-mandated melon-inspection license. Just half-remembered wisdom, passed down like a sacred oral tradition from older relatives who’ve been burned before.
And yet we’ve all got rules. These are passed along from a neighbor, a grandparent, or the guy at the farmer’s market with too many opinions. Rules like:
• “Find the one with the big brownish spot.”
• “Go heavy. If it’s not oddly heavy, it’s full of lies.”
• “Knock on it. It should sound like a hollow log… or maybe a bass drum… or possibly a haunted cave? Depends who you ask.”
And the best part? Every single person believes their method works: Even if they just picked the first one that looked kinda round and got lucky.
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Segment 2: Rituals in the Produce Aisle
Picking a watermelon is never just picking a watermelon.
It’s a performance.
You pretend to inspect the stem. You squint thoughtfully at the rind like it holds ancient runes. You give it the official Thump of Judgment.
And then, the moment of decision. You lift it into your cart like Arthur pulling the sword from the stone – hoping you chose wisely, because this melon is going to feed eight people and determine whether your picnic is remembered fondly or with bitterness and sadness.
Meanwhile, others at the bin are performing their own routines. You’ve got the Finger Tapper, the Symmetry Inspector, the guy who smells the rind like he’s a bloodhound trying to solve a melon-based murder.
Nobody writes this stuff down. You just absorb it. And before you know it, you’re in the grocery store aisle giving a watermelon the ol’ karate knuckle and nodding like you passed a sacred test.
Folklorists call this process, this learning from watching, “informal transmission.”
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Segment 3: The Secret Signs of Watermelon Witchcraft
It’s not just that we thump and squint and sniff. It’s that we’ve built entire legends around what we’re looking for.
Take the webbing – those brown, scar-like squiggles on the rind. Some folks will tell you it’s a good sign. "That means it’s sweet,” they say confidently, like they personally interviewed the melon.
But the reason? Oh, it gets better.
There’s an entire urban legend that says those scars come from bee stings. Supposedly, bees were so drawn to the sweetness of this particular watermelon, they stung it repeatedly, trying to get a taste. And that’s why the melon is sweeter.
Now, is that how bees work? Do they buzz around stinging sweet sweet flowers?
Absolutely not.
But does it feel right?
Oddly: yes. Because it’s just believable enough to stick.
It’s got bugs. It’s got danger. It’s got sweetness and pain and nature’s approval. It’s practically a Greek myth in produce form.
And that’s not the only one.
• A dark green rind means it’s overripe – or under-ripe – depending on who you ask.
• A dull thump is good. Unless it’s bad.
• Long melons are watery. Round melons are sweet. Unless you heard the opposite.
These little rules spread like gossip and stick like Uncle Doug’s conspiracy theories – not because they’ve been lab-tested, but because they’ve worked just often enough for someone to say, “Trust me.”
Interestingly, we tend to defend our method, even when it fails us. We feel compelled to defend our family’s folk practice.
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Closing:
So next time you’re in the produce aisle, giving a watermelon the ol’ knock-knock-and-stare, remember: you’re not just buying fruit. You’re participating in an ancient, unspoken, vaguely embarrassing ritual.
You are part of a lineage of hopeful thumpers, sniffers, and lifters, all trying to find the one true melon of sweet, red deliciousness.
It’s definitely a folk thing.

Until Next Time.