There are, as I write, four pears squatting in a bowl in my kitchen, nestled in among some cheery mandarins (mandarins being by far the most easy-going of fruit). They were earmarked, at point of purchase, for my early morning porridge. That was the plan. Not that they care. They’ve been hanging around for almost two weeks now, refusing to ripen.They are hard. Harder than hard. Hard as the proverbial hobs of hell.I’ve been teaching the word “belligerent” to a group in my primary school. It came up in a novel we were reading. The group are finding it tricky to see any difference between it and just plain angry. Really, I need to bring these pears in, sit them on the desk in front of the children and make it clear that this is what belligerence looks like.Pears are without a doubt the most stubborn of fruits. No other fruit gets squeezed as often. Squeezed with an almost palpable sense of hope and a, as often as not, misplaced sense of optimism. Not apples or oranges or bananas. Not strawberries or grapefruit or plums.And they have developed a strategy over the millenniums. They will wait until there is no one in their immediate vicinity – in fact, ignore that, they will check that there is no one in their immediate vicinity – and then ripen instantaneously and sumptuously. Now, I’m clearly guessing here with that “sumptuously” part as, of course, nobody knows and this “ripening” will last for the blink of an eye before turning to mush. And the best of mushes, at that. Brown and gooey and entirely yucky. And, of course, if there’s more than one pear involved, in all likelihood they will plan and enact this strategy together in some kind of fruit-based, mutually-supportive pact.If ever there was a fruit that had our number, it has to be pears.Apples, on the other hand, are entirely compliant with the whole unspoken contract between us and them – between us and fruit in general. About them being there primarily for our benefit. [ Bad call – Fionnuala Ward on putting phones between ourselves and realityOpens in new window ]After all, I’m pretty sure we invented them in the first place, what with our dabbling about in the fertilisation pool over the generations. So, one way or another, we are owed a favour here which apples, to their credit, are keen to return. They don’t demand our vigilance. No hovering over the fruit bowl is necessary. They are good to go from the off.In fact, so successfully have apples entered our collective consciousness, that they’ve become part of our shared heritage and oral tradition.Would any other fruit have made it into the basket of the Wicked Queen as she knocked on the door of Snow White? Unlikely. Had it been a pear, chances are Snow White would have seen out her life, living happily in that cottage with her seven buddies, unable as she would have been to take a chunk of the proffered fruit.And then there’s grapefruit, which is an interesting case, grapefruit not being a fruit for the faint-hearted. As a juice, first thing in the morning, it performs its duties perfectly adequately. But as a casual snack during the day? I’ve only witnessed this on two occasions and in both instances the people involved peeled and consumed their fruit without the merest flicker of a grimace. Clearly, individuals you would choose to take into battle on the spot.Which brings us to bananas. The tidiest of fruit. No drama there, you would think. But bananas are a stalwart of the school lunch and can prove obstinate on occasion. Barely a week goes by without a child approaching at one of the breaks, banana in hand, asking for it to be “opened”. But, in fairness to the banana in question, once the deed is done, it pretty much throws in the towel there and then and the child can generally be seen happily munching their way back to their desk.But returning to my pears. I suspect there is a new tactic at play in my kitchen. They’ve been there so long now that they’re as good as bedded in. Not an inch has been given and the prospect of any inches being surrendered in the coming hours or days isn’t great.And so, I can draw only one conclusion. That they are slowly imploding from within and in doing so rendering themselves inedible.They have, in effect, won. And to them, I doff my hat. Well played, pears. Well played.