Have you ever had a phrase from another time in your life just jump into your head and you don’t really know where it came from? Because I had that happen to me the other day.

I think the phrase had been shaken loose by reading an excerpt of ‘Tis on the New Yorker while procrastinating at work. (I assume you know the feeling where your mind just pinballs around when you need a mental rest and you’re tooling around on the internet. “Maybe I’ll check the New York Times to see what Trump did today. Nah, New Yorker. Huh, from ’99? I’ll check that out. Frank McCourt… but not Angela’s Ashes…”) Frank McCourt is just off the boat from Ireland, back in New York where he was born. He runs into a bar and the bartender makes a crack about the Irish spending too much time in bars and he should go to the library and read Dr. Johnson, Lives of the Poets.

Frank does so. He goes straight to the 5th Ave library, gets the book, then heads back to the bar to show the bartender.

By then my attention had wavered yet again because I realized that I had no idea who Dr. Johnson was, nor had I any idea what Lives of the Poets was.

I like to think of myself as smart (who doesn’t) but I realize that there is a big gap missing from my education with regards to classic literature. I don’t know any classic Greek plays. I’ve never read any Chekov, George Eliot, Dostoyevsky or any other writers worth namechecking. I certainly don’t know poets or poetry. I like Billy Collins but he’s known for his accessibility. Wallace Stevens, E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, I don’t get it.

And that’s when the phrase jumped in my head. “Ruddy-skinned pears.” I remembered it from high school English class with Mr. Bradley. At first I thought it was from “To His Coy Lover” (which, upon googling is actually “To His Coy Mistress”) because I knew it had to do with a guy who wanted his lover (I hate that word but it is, unfortunately, quite useful here) to stay in bed with him.

It’s the last line from “A Late Aubade” by Richard Wilbur.

I remember Mr. Bradley explaining that the ruddy-skinned pears, along with the red wine and bleu cheese that this male narrator also requests his lover to fetch, are the kind of thing an upper middle class literature professor might want. I mean the last line isn’t “some crispy pigs in a blanket.”

But the phrase stuck with me and has continued to do so all these years later just because it’s so damn douchey. What “cellar door” is for beauty, “ruddy-skinned pears” is for douchery.

Looking at a picture of Richard Wilbur I can’t help but think of the lovers sketch from SNL with Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch. “While we sit here in the hutub, we shall feed each other goat meat…”

Anyway, it just struck me. Ruddy-skinned pears.

Now, my love, let us linger some more, fetch me some Stacy’s Simple Naked pita chips and salted cashews from Whole Foods…