Atlanta
Georgia
March 2017
I almost killed my brother.
It wasn’t personal, just something that almost happened.
In his lifetime, my brother endured a lot. He broke his leg in high school and nearly got it shot off in Vietnam, where he was also likely exposed to Agent Orange. He spent three weeks in a coma with pancreatitis. He survived two strokes and numerous automobile accidents. In his post-war anger days, he frequently got punched out during occasional street fights, where he also threw some punches.
You think that’s bad? I almost killed him with a smoothie.
People have all kinds of allergies, a particular sensitivity where your body reacts to normally harmless substances. Symptoms may include sneezing, itching, watery, red or swollen eyes, swelling of your parts, hives, coughing and chest tightness, wheezing, shortness of breath, inflammation, a rash, anaphylaxis.
Death.
Bummer.
What can cause these allergic reactions? Coffee, red meat, wine, sweat, water (!), one’s own child, fabrics, semen. Pineapple, shoes, henna tattoos, plants, hairy caterpillars, insect stings or bites, some cancer medications, cold temperatures, sunlight, electrical radiation.
Bananas.
Here’s what happened. Instead of after-dinner cookies, for some time now I’d been drinking a smoothie made of healthy foods: berries, straw-, blue- and rasp-, grapes, a little chocolate for the soul. Umm, very tasty, especially if you put in more than its share of chocolate.
Oh, and bananas.
Visiting my brother one time, I made myself an after-dinner smoothie and offered him some. “Sure,” he said in his self-confident, I’ll-try-anything voice.
Banana. That’s the end of the story. What was he allergic to? Banana.
I almost killed my brother.
It wasn’t personal, just something that almost happened.
