So back before Peru if you had mentioned the word mango to me I would have said it was a fruit that costs way too much fresh, is way too sweet when bought dry, and is great in juice. It was just some exotic fruit that they sure don’t grow in North Carolina though I’m pretty sure they’ve got them out in Cali and the west coast. A mango was just a mango. A fruit nothing else.
Oh was I wrong. The mango is a silent killer. When harvesting mangos a non ripe, or green, mango can fall from a very high branch and land directly on your head and cause a day-long headache. Or that same green mango can be covered in “mango milk” or the sap from the tree which causes a rash that rivals any poison ivy I’ve ever seen. Oh and heaven forbid you forgot that you had some of that mango milk on your hand and scratched that itch you had beside your eye. Forget pink eye, that’s bloodshot eye for at least 4 days and no you won’t be able to see out of that eye either for a while…might wanna head to the health post to get that looked at. Plus don’t listen to that little boy that lives beside you when he says that green mangos are delicious with salt; to me it tastes kinda like eating a banana peel and lemon peel smushed together with a little salt for seasoning. Then that little neighbor kid forgot to mention that a green mango piece can stick to the side of your intestines and cause one heck of a gastrointestinal issue if you’re lucky and possibly kill if you happen to be a tiny baby. (So that last one hasn’t been scientifically proven, but I’ll believe it after seeing the mango milk reaction…imagine that on your insides…) Not only are green mangos a cause for alarm for humans, they can kill your cow as well. Pay close attention to what those cows hanging out under the mango tree are doing. Silly things forget to chew green mangos (they don’t bother with the salt) and then get them lodged in their throats when the mango milk sticks to the sides. Puts a new spin on a hamburger with mango salsa huh?
And if you thought that just the green mangos were causing all the problems, well you haven’t seen anything yet. Careful eating that ripe mango, that juice doesn’t come out of your clothes. Oh and don’t you try to put some bleach on that juice stain on your favorite white shirt, before the bleach it was a nice yellow color but two seconds after contact with your former friend Mr. Clorox that stain turns a poop-green color that’s never to be reversed back that that sunny yellow. Now staining clothes aren’t too big of a deal, just make sure you wear the same old t-shirt every time you’re eating a mango. Also if you happen to have teeth, which most of us do, that mango’s got a beard. The inside of a mango is filled with these little strings intertwined throughout the flesh for the sole purpose of causing any mango eater at least 5 minutes of tooth-picking post-mango eating and the need for a good flossing. It’s probably all just a warning to eat just that one mango, but they’re just so dern tasty and we tend to forget and keep eating. Too many mangos, ripe as they are, cause another issue: Mango Stomach. Mango Stomach is another form of indigestion, indigestion from hell. That mango was just so tasty it seemed like a good idea at the time to eat three more, but you won’t be eating again for at least another 24 hours. It’s the mango diet.
So after much thought, while sitting out on the log underneath my mango tree eating a few mangos in my mango eating shirt, I discovered something. It was probably a MSG (Ajinomoto) induced vision, that stuff will give you some weird dreams and day dreams as it turns out. However, I believe that the forbidden fruit couldn’t have possibly been an apple; it could only have been a mango. Let’s think this through people. Every drawing I’ve ever seen of this biblical scenario there are a few key details: A red snake, a forbidden fruit, a couple wearing nothing but foliage as clothing. So let’s break this down into parts. Apples grow in moderately cold zones right? I mean I’ve never heard of an apple growing in the middle of Texas. So this statement contradicts the shrubbery as clothing detail. I can’t see Adam and Eve being nice and comfy in their maple-bikinis in the middle of a North Carolina fall. It’s just not happening. Then snakes, the snake I always see is a bright red color, which to me implies he’s probably of the poisonous variety. Since when do you see a red poisonous snake in the middle of apple growing territory? The occasional copperhead of course, and those pesky water moccasins are a given, but a coral snake? I think not. But hot zones, they have some bright colored poisonous snakes out there, and come to think of it they grow mangos out there too…and what’s more comfortable in the sweltering heat than a good foliage-string bikini for her with matching loin cloth for him? Given it’s not a wicking material the sweat just rolls right off you! That snake was a mango vendor, no doubt about it.
Ok so the heat could be getting to me, but you have to admit. I make a pretty good point.
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