Radioactive Watermelon

During our time in Ukraine we discovered as many similarities as we did differences. Most of these similarities involved food. Which made sense because growing up our mother served us a lot of the same things her cousins fed us while in their home. I imagine mom was happy to see her first watermelon in America, since it is a staple of the Ukrainian diet and probably the most plentiful fruit there. The soil in the countryside we saw so much of (thanks to Dima the wanderer) was so rich it was virtually black, and yeilded some of the best and sweetest watermelon I have ever tasted in my life. It is called there "арбуз", pronounced ar-BOOS. Once when we were visiting realtives in Konstantinovka, the арбуз came out and we  jokingkly asked if it was radioactive. Our host answered in a deadpan serious Russian manner. "I don't know. I don't have a Geiger counter."