transcendental apperception

Being very nearsighted, more so every passing day it seems, I couldn't see what my husband just brought to the breakfast table in a bowl from over here where I am at the laptop (I was just writing about the tiny boy on the bus).

I asked him; or rather, I stared at it until he told me what it was; I explained that I couldn't quite make sense of the shapes and colors I was seeing and figure out what it could be in the bowl (first he thought I just wanted some). He said something like "Oh, your transcendental apperception failed you." (btw, it was a cut-up greenish-yellow melon)

Me: What the [bleep] is apperception?

Him: Transcendental apperception is . . . 

Me: No, just what is apperception?

Him: That's what I'm telling you.

Me: No, you're telling me about transcendental apperception!

Him: That's the only kind of apperception there seems to be in Kant!

Me: We're not in Kant!

Him: Ah, that's where you're wrong . . .