Flippy and Leigh-Ann expressed curiosity about my beet allergy, mentioned in the previous post. While I realize that peanut allergy is the hip, trendy thing now, I have beets instead. I'm surprised those two weren't familiar with it, because Noel on Felicity has beet allergy, and if anyone would know that sort of television trivia, it should be them. I don’t remember this myself, but I have heard the story from a reliable source (my mom) and it seems that once, way back when I was a wee kidlet, she abused me by making me ingest beets.

“I don’t wike dose, dey make me sick,” I protested.

Heady from her Orange Gelatinous Goo triumph, Mom thought I was being finicky. Apparently there was probable cause for this, as I was a notoriously picky eater. I KNOW! Me, being difficult - I could hardly believe it either. So she forced me to eat the accursed beets.

Dey made me sick.

A horrible, itchy, (and rather beet-colored) rash enveloped my entire body, which was bad enough, but there were reportedly...er, unpleasant, explosive reactions involving various portions of the digestive tract which continued unabated for some time, dehydrating my poor wee childhood self. I got taken to hospital; it was all dramatic and stuff.

One day, a couple of years later I suppose, I overheard Mom relating this story to a friend of hers. She talked about not only the unpleasant reaction, but how badly it had frightened her. It was the most glorious day of my childhood, better than Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny combined; I (maniacally devious even then) realized, with the radiant light of a beatific epiphany, that the next time she tried to feed me something horrific and vile, such as cauliflower (pestilence in vegetable form), if I could only manage to make myself violently ill afterwards - by drinking syrup of ipecac perhaps, or projectile vomiting through my nose - she’d think I was allergic to it and I’d never be forced to eat it again. Imagine, if you will, the joy of a childhood free from nasty, repellant vegetables such as brussels sprouts, collards, English peas and, of course, cauliflower, and filled with only the good vegetables like corn and potatoes. Go on, imagine it - but I don’t have to, because I lived it! It was mine, MINE, MINE! Bwahahahaha!