Farewell to a fruit

Dear Pineapple -

I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. You are a universal symbol for hospitality. You were the reason I learned to use a can opener. You were my childhood’s Saturday morning “Mom’s sleeping in” breakfast. You were my after-school snack. You could give me a fork and I’d drink the juice when I was done. Nothing was wasted. I worshiped a god named Dole.

When I was pregnant with Doodle, my cravings got worse. I lusted for your fresh flesh. No trip to the grocery store was complete unless you were in my basket. Canker sores be damned. I loved you and I would eat until I could eat no more.

But now, you’ve turned on me. Last month, I sampled a few wedges of your golden, sinewy goodness at a cocktail party and awoke the next day to having my voice possessed by Kathleen Turner and my sinuses possessed by the Swamp Thing. What came out of me was not pretty. What was worse was the rash that broke out on my face. Never had a food plagued me with such a Benadryl-grasping reaction.

This…

+ this… = not a pretty me.

I thought it was merely a fluke. It could have been anything on that plate could have been the culprit, right? The cantaloupe? The honeydew? The cheese? All items I’d had before. Someone had turned on me. I hoped it wasn’t you.

But it was.

Last weekend, I couldn’t pass up a bowl of the famous Tiki Room Dole Whip at Disneyland. I figured, if it was you, it was only a reaction to the potency of your freshness, not your entire existence.

Sure enough, the scratchy throat and green goop was back. The eczema was masked by the mild sunburn resulting from a day of exposure to the day star in the Magic Kingdom. But all of the prayer to the Tiki gods did me no good.

We must part ways. It breaks my heart to let you go. You’ve been a great immunity booster for the last thirtysomething years. But I must bid you adieu, my sweet love and hope that some day in the not too distant future, we can reunite without the toxicity.

Love,

Nancy