It was a food item (at least...), I just didn't know what. I tasted chocolate, and that was somewhat reassuring. But it was more bitter than I was accustomed to, definitely not the chocolate I unwrapped at movie theaters, or even the type I sold door to door for school fundraisers. This was 'grownup' chocolate, almost tasted unsweetened, and had a rough, grooved texture that just running my tongue over (that is, before actually chewing) didn't feel right. It became clear that this chocolate was hiding something. Possibly something sinister.
Right away, there was a tingling in my mouth, like an alarm going off...although 'tingling' is not really accurate. 'Tingling' suggests something pleasant. A sour candy might make your mouth tingle, or the mere anticipation of a certain flavor, a certain food, something you really love to eat and can't wait to have. This sensation had nothing to do with taste; it was less a tingle, more of a trill, a tuneless vibration, like something an insect might do to ward off predators or attract a mate with which to engage in the most disgusting copulation imaginable (the kind that usually culminates in the male's head being bitten off).
"I don' thing I shu' be eaden thith..." I muttered aloud, after biting down and confirming beyond a doubt that something bad lay beneath the (allegedly) chocolate coating. Reluctant to swallow, I held the woody bolus in a precautionary cue at the top of my throat, and it was impeding my speech significantly.
"Oh these are wonderful," my den mother assured me. "I loved these at holiday time when I was a little girl."
I swallowed. It wasn't easy. The skin inside my mouth was beginning to crawl as though there were insects in it. Putting this thing in motion down my throat was like shoving the last of my belongings into a closet and closing the door really fast to keep it all from spilling back out. The insect-like trill followed the object all the way down my ten-year-old gullet, painting the inside walls of my esophagus with the sickness. My throat began to clench. My lungs joined the rebellion, airways closing up.
Within two minutes, I was in my den mother's bathroom off the kitchen dry heaving, my face the color (and shape) of an eggplant, veins bulging, sweat pouring, barely able to breathe, racked by...not pain, but an almost indescribably acute discomfort that quickly spread throughout my entire body.
It was December 1982. My den mother was hosting a Christmas party for our Cub Scout pack. She had a nice home, and it was dressed to the nines for the Yuletide season. Outside snow was falling, inside Christmas lights were twinkling, music playing. We had done a gift exchange (my 'secret Santa' gave me a pack of marshmallow jack-o-lanterns, left over from Halloween), sung some carols (Bat Man smells...), learned a little about Hanukkah (though with my mixed heritage, I just might have been the closest thing to a Jew most of them would ever encounter), then played some games. The culmination of the game-playing, and the evening, was a (sorta weird...?) game where she blindfolded us, placed a small piece of food in our mouth, and by taste and smell alone asked us to identify it.
It all went perfectly fine at first. I remember a piece of banana being placed in my mouth, a slice of apple, a wedge of pepperoni...a peppermint. Perhaps the game was not weird so much as lame, not much of a challenge, an activity better suited for pre-schoolers still trying to wrap their minds around their burgeoning senses than 10-year-old boys, all of whom possessed wits sophisticated enough at least to obtain their Wolf badge. But we all played along, competed to be the first to blurt out what had been placed on our tongues. Smooth sailing, until I constricted my mouth around that mysterious object, bit down, then against my better judgment swallowed.
She had innocently fed me a chocolate covered pecan, which was - and is - on the short list of nuts that could (and can) kill me.
Actually, the more I think about it, the odder that game seems. Well meaning and innocent on her part, to be sure, but ill-advised. It would seem that in these overly litigious times, any den mother who played such a game with her Cubs and wound up with one of them retching violently in her bathroom could find herself on the receiving end of strenuous legal action, but nothing came of the incident thirty years ago. When the allergic reaction finally ceased, I sat alone at her dining room table, groaning and smacking my lips and hoping the sickness didn't return, until my dad came and picked me up.
To be honest, I really should have known better than to swallow. The insect-like trill in my mouth was nothing new. But I was blindfolded and disoriented, and impelled by the game's competition. My only recourse would have been to spit it out, but that would have been an indiscreet (and gross) rejection of my den mother's cherished holiday memory.
As a child, I was acutely allergic to tree nuts of all varieties, and I still am. To this day, there are three biggies I must avoid: walnuts, pecans and almonds. Walnuts especially. Just the sight of those brains in a half shell causes an adverse reaction in my mind, and even someone eating them around me can get the anaphylactic gears grinding. When I was a kid, I encountered them most often at birthday parties and special events, thoughtlessly (greedily) scarfing down cookies or brownies, only to be left running to the bathroom when I felt that tell-tale 'lump in my throat'...always within thirty seconds of consumption.
As an adult, I've found they lurk in odd and unexpected places, like sauces and hot dishes seasoned a certain way. One time, in my mid-20s, a store-bought 'Cajun'-flavored barbecue sauce made me sick, and from then on, I've always read ingredient labels thoroughly before proceeding. Another time, a restaurant flavored its chili with walnuts (only slightly more perverse than what they do to chili in Cincinnati), and said nothing about it in the menu. Within one minute of having consumed just a spoonful, I was outside the restaurant, behind my car in the parking lot, bent forward, hands on my knees, puking violently. Violently. And loudly.
Words can't adequately describe what a food allergy reaction is like. Imagine your whole body feeling nauseous, not just your stomach, a kind of concentrated discomfort. And yet the word 'nausea' also falls short, because it suggests mere sickness - a tummy ache that will pass in time, or be alleviated by vomiting.
Vomiting isn't going to help. Reacting to a perceived threat, your body shoots to DEFCON 1 in an instant, and you feel impossible in your own skin. I'd give anything to be actually puking up something in moments like that - some assurance that I'm being cleansed of the offending material, that there's a reason for all this to be happening. And even if something does come up, the vomiting continues, like a child throwing a tantrum for not getting any attention. The whole of my skin feels like its puckering and unpuckering. Breathing becomes difficult...for a while unnervingly so.
Interestingly, I can eat peanuts. Love me some peanuts, as a matter of fact. The reason for this is that peanuts are not true nuts, they are legumes. I'm glad I don't have a peanut allergy. It seems to be the most virulent of all food allergies. Happily, I can't say I've ever had a reaction where my life has been in peril. Never needed a hospital visit, or felt the need to carry an epinephrine pen. But if I consumed enough walnuts or pecans, and didn't get help fast enough, I think I'd meet my end. And I don't think 'enough' to kill me would be all that much, given how severe my reaction to just a little is.
The vigilance I've kept on account of my food allergy sometimes makes me self-conscious. I prefer to fly under the radar in just about any situation, I don't want to be singled out; I don't want to special order at restaurants, or worse, have people special plan dinners or potluck around me...and yet, I have to. To be safe, I have to...at least in some measure.
But in this day and age, when it's not out of the realm of possibility for lawsuits to fire off at the drop of a hat, some restaurants are crazy vigilant. I made the mistake of mentioning my allergy at Coldstone Creamery once. I didn't make a big deal about it, just asked (nicely, and discreetly) if they could make sure to completely wipe down the board (the trademark 'cold stone' on which their product is prepared...) before preparing my sundae on it, just to ensure any and all remnants (however minuscule) of the walnut extravaganza the customer before me (may have) ordered was completely removed.
The kid behind the counter went ballistic. Suddenly he was preparing my order in a separate container, in a separate part of the kitchen, away from the cold stone all together. I appreciated his vigilance, I suppose...but on account of it, I was handed a Peanut Butter Cup Perfection I could have drank through a straw.
Generally, I believe we are all just a little too quick to feel victimized in this society, and that the threat of lawsuit around every corner has made us all a bit paranoid. And yet, being- in this case - on the side of 'victimhood', I'm inclined to make sure everyone knows that food allergy is a real thing: an uncontrollable reaction can occur, and turn deadly pretty quickly. Not everyone knows this, or believes it, even those who should. To this day, my dad (God bless him) is surprised to learn I never outgrew what he thinks was merely a childhood aversion to nuts the way I outgrew my childhood aversion to vegetables. That can be dangerous thinking. If someone has a reaction, never assume everything is all right, or that it will pass. That reaction can kill.
At the very least, it can make the victim wish it would kill.
