Have you ever been confounded by the realization that there are both black and white seeds found in watermelon?

If you are anything like me, such a question has plagued your mind for the better part of a holiday weekend. Take this past holiday weekend, for example. (And for those of you who aren't in Utah, the 24th of July is known as Pioneer Day - a state holiday set aside to celebrate the day the Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake valley and began to set up shop.)

So, there I was, enjoying a hearty slice of melon when suddenly it dawned on me. There are two types of seeds in a watermelon. Some are smaller and white and others are larger and black. What does this mean? Which seed accomplishes what? Germination? I don't even know what that word means really, but it certainly dawned on me (like I mentioned earlier. Go ahead, re-read this paragraph. I said "dawned").

I attempted to shelve the controversial debate so I could enjoy the celebration of pioneer heritage, but found myself literally plagued by the dissension in my mind. I had to find out. I could not consume anymore melon of the water variety until this mystery was put to rest, once and for all.

It was for occasions exactly like this, that the world wide interweb was invented. Besides, if you can't find it on the interweb, it doesn't exist. But alas, access to the netweb was nowhere to be found as I was out partaking in activities akin to the days of old. In fact, from where I pondered, a good twenty or more covered wagons could be seen. All meals were being served on a pot-luck-only basis. Gospel songs of gratitude and survival were being sung. It was as though merely mentioning the word "internet" would be seen as disrespectful to our forefathers.

So I waited.





And waited.

And watched fireworks.

And waited.

In traffic.

Then the moment arrived. As soon as the car was securely parked in the garage, I made a B-line to my laptop. What? Jamison was asleep in his car seat. Surely he'd be fine while I googled, right?

Anyway. Nearly an entire day's worth of agony resulted in this:

"If a regular watermelon has lots of white seeds along with the normal brown-black seeds then it was removed from the vine too early and will not have as much flavor."

So, basically the white seed is an immature black seed.

That's it.