Mango Rash

When I first tasted a mango, I fell in love. I lived in Seattle, was shopping at the PCC, came across it, cut it open and sucked it right out of the skin.

It was, quite simply, the most amazing thing I had ever tasted. I plunged my face into that fleshy fruit and ate it and sucked it and devoured it.

Twenty four hours later--or less--I developed a strange rash all around my mouth. I made no connection. But I looked really weird and contagious--like a sick clown.

When I went to the U Dub clinic they said I had mango rash. Unbeknownst to us of the colder climes, mangos have a toxic agent in their skins like poison ivy. If it touches your skin--or at least the skin of sensitive people like me--it causes a rash, just like poison ivy. Only on your lips. Horrific!

The doc called in the residents and they all stood around me and stared and probed and looked. Amazing. What a mango can do.

That should have been the end of mangoes for me, but I love them too much to steer clear.

And now my boys love mangoes. I hate peeling them, and I always tell them the story of mango rash, and I cut them far away from the skin, because they, too, have sensitive skin. Especially my fair-haired Benji.

So the other day we went a little crazy. We had two or three mangoes. The Mexican and the Indian, the yellow and the red. We compared and savored.

And today, as I woke up and licked my lips I felt the tell-tale itching around my lips.

Shoot!

So itchy. So awful. And I still don't think I could turn down a mango if someone handed me one.

(I will NOT show you a photo).