Misery, thy Name is PINEAPPLE

Here is a photo of my last happy pineapple-eating experience. Now, here is my story: I am, for the most part recovered from the food nightmare that was last week, and I will share this information as a Public Service Announcement in the hopes that I will be able to save one other poor soul from the godawful pain that I have experienced in the last week.

Last Sunday, not yesterday, but the week before, I was in Costco shopping around for the usual - a giant box of oatmeal, a few flannel shirts, a 40-pound bag of dog kibble and a case of spendy Italian fizzy water. My eyes wandered, as they are wont to do, and landed upon a display of perky looking whole pineapples direct from Costa Rica. My mind flashed back to happy days spent lolling about the house in Molokai, drinking coffee in the morning and tossing back oversized chunks of juicy pineapple. I thought it would be fun to spend the $3.89 to allow the rest of my family to share in the joy-inducing flashback.

The next morning, Maggie woke up and said, "Mama, I want to watch a show." I said, "How about we have something to eat instead. Would you like some oatmeal??" She said, "No, I want some of THAT" - pointing, of course, to the pineapple on the kitchen counter.

"SURE!!" I said, and whipped out the giant kitchen knife. In no time at all, I had sliced, diced, divvied up pieces... Well, shortly thereafter, my mouth began to feel as if I had either stuck a hot poker between my lips and sucked on it like the wrong end of a mammoth lit cigarette or contracted some rare disease that involved turning my spit into caustic acid and my taste buds into tiny sponges. Eating became something to be dreaded. Suddenly, before putting anything in my mouth, I did a quick mental assessment of it's potential crunchiness (because things like chewed crackers felt like they were cutting into my tongue) and it's approximate acidity. Wine? Too acidic. Tomatoes? No. Spinach? No. Even milk - "Lactic acid? Will that hurt?"

So, as we know, Google is our friend. I searched "tongue pain" - and soon, without prompting, saw the word "pineapple" - Until then, I had not traced the potential cause of the misery - I didn't know if I was contagious. I didn't know if it would ever get better.

Apparently, pineapple - especially unripe pineapple - has something in it called Bromelain, which can be used as a meat tenderizer, and I had tenderized my tongue (well). When I say that I will never eat pineapple again, I am not being overdramatic. I read that I could expect the pain to last from 7-10 days, and it did. I went to Costco this past Saturday. Somewhere between the electronics and the cheese, I saw a kind-looking middle-aged man with a fresh pineapple in his cart. I seriously had to (silently) yell at myself inside my head to keep me from throwing my body into his cart and covering up that pineapple like it was a live grenade. I wanted to save the man, but then I realized that I wouldn't be able to do that if they kicked me out of the store for harassing the other customers. So, I let him go and I said a little prayer for his tongue health.