Of purple spruce trees

I had the strangest experience today at a meeting. Several people were telling me something that simply isn't and then looking at me like I was highly offensive and slightly crazy for pointing that out. And then they asked me to justify what I would do to make the thing that isn't right with the world. It was like some alternate universe or something:

Setting - In the woods, next to a towering spruce tree
Cast - Me, Person 1, Person 2

Me: Wow. That's an amazing tree.
Person 1: Yes, that purple spruce tree is just gorgeous.
Person 2: (with emphasis) I am just blown away by the beautiful purple color of that spruce tree.
Me: (laughing at their joke) Yeah! That spruce tree's just the perfect grape color. (winks and elbows Person 2.)
Person 2: (glaring) What's so funny? I really do think it's a pretty purple spruce tree.
Person 1: Yeah, why are you laughing? It really is a lovely shade of purple.
Me: (brows furrowed in a puzzled way) Umm. Yeah, but the tree is green. It's a spruce tree. They are green.
Person 1: No, it is NOT green. It's purple.
Me: But ... But ... (points to tree) It's green. Can't you see it? It's a perfectly lovely, perfectly green, spruce tree.
Person 2: (shakes head) Why do you have to be so negative?
Person 1: (shakes head and walks away with Person 2) Yeah. You just don't know anything about spruce trees. Why do you always have to argue about these things. We know that spruce trees are purple.
Me: (softly and looking at the tree with a baffled expression) I don't understand. The tree is green.

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