A sack of oranges is prominently featured in a scene in The Grifters where Anjelica Huston and a mob boss (who was that guy) menacingly discuss a con involving beating someone with a sack of oranges. Supposedly if done properly, it doesn't hurt, but leaves bruises all over the "victim"; however if done wrong it causes all kinds of internal bleeding, blah, blah, blah you die.

I've always wondered if that was true.

A popular choice of merchandise for vendors sitting on the sides of highway offramps and busy streets. This, as far as I know, is solely a Southern California phenomenon. It's also a source of certain racist slurs, as all the orange vendors I've ever seen have been hispanic.

There's always something sad about the orange vendors. It's not like they're simply begging, and I really respect them for selling something, but I wonder who's going to buy from them, really? Why can't they get more lucrative and fulfilling jobs? Do they know that if a cop feels like it, they could pull them in for days for working without a business license?

Just more of those lonely people drifting through the consensual hallucination we call "life".