I didn't realize it, but people get very emotional about watermelons.

At work yesterday, when the subject turned inevitably to food, I happened to mention that I'd bought one of those new, small, so-called ``personal sized'' watermelons on Saturday.

Well! You should have heard the venom that bit of news unleashed against ye olde-fashioned humongous watermelons.

People were so whipped up, it was if they were talking about something truly evil, like Madonna's ``Swept Away,'' or the fact that Dannon, with no warning at all, reduced the size of its yogurt containers from eight ounces to six.

Why the anger? To borrow from Freud, sometimes a watermelon is more than just a watermelon. It's a commitment, an obligation, a reminder that you aren't as popular as you'd like to be.

``It's sad,'' one of my colleagues said, ``I don't know enough people to buy a watermelon. I haven't had one in years.''

I know how she feels. There's nothing to rub in the fact that you're not living a Pottery Barn summer like a watermelon growing old in your refrigerator, sitting on its specially cleared shelf, dripping its blood-colored juice on a lower shelf while you slowly work your way through it, day by day. Alone.

And while all fruit carries some tension - there's the unspoken but relentless pressure of the bunch of bananas, all freckling and then blackening at the same time; the tiny, $3.99 box of berries, the bottom layer molding on the way home from the store; the leap of faith of the honeydew, a fruit that knows how to keep its secrets. (Am I ripe or not? Cut into me and you'll see.) But no fruit is as intimidating as the old 20-pound watermelon.

Like a jealous lover, they would squeeze almost everything else out of your life. ``I'd like to buy watermelon,'' a city dweller told me, ``but then I wouldn't be able to carry milk or juice or anything else home from the store.''

But now, thanks to the miracle of science, comes the individual watermelon. Weighing in at around five or six pounds, small enough to carry in your backpack, these little babies have taken the fear factor out of the purchase.

Yes, they cost as much or more than a bigger watermelon, but who wouldn't pay a buck or two extra to buy your way out of the guilt? Aside from dumping a plant that died because you forgot to water it (and then remembered, but felt too guilty to face it), there's nothing more depressing than feeding 15 pounds of watermelon into the disposal.

Except, of course, coming to the end of a small bag of M&Ms. So while we're all in the mood to resize, why don't we re-label the one-pound bag? From now on, it's personal size.