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Because stickers on fruits and vegetables can irritate consumers, produce companies are now starting to tattoo UPC codes and countries of origin directly onto the food's skin, reports the Times.

Consider poor Jean Lemeaux of Clarksville, Tex.:

"I was picking all the little stickers from the Piggly Wiggly off my plums and my avocado pears and my peaches," said Ms. Lemeaux, 76. "Then I had to make fruit salad out of the ones that got hurt when I took the stickers off, and then I had to wash the glue off the other ones before I put them in the fruit bowl."

"One time," she said, "I got up the next morning and looked in the mirror and there were two of them up in my hair."

Now consider whether, perhaps, there are some people who are simply too incompetent to be allowed to eat fruit.

And how the Times managed to find one of them.

Tired of Prying Away Stickers? Tattooed Fruit Is on the Way [NYT]