Grapefruit

I have a loved-hate relationship with grapefruit. A history, if you will.

When I was a kid growing up in Florida, I had access to plenty of good grapefruit. Indian River grapefruit was a go-to for locals and for tourists, who would snatch up bags of the fruit from roadside stands to carry back to wherever land.

My maternal grandfather even had a tree, which he kept more bush-like and no more than 5' tall. That one tree would yield dozens and dozens of the fruit. His secret ingredients for a fertilizer were coffee grounds and fish guts wrapped in newspaper and buried under or next to plants. 

I remember using a special spoon designed to cut into the sections and sort of saw out the grapefruit. Coated the fruit with a layer of sugar and dug in.

Yep, I loved my grapefruit.

Loved that is until I soured on them after making a trip with my dad's brother to a citrus grove in Lakeland County. The details--my memories--are limited, but I do remember riding in the back of a farm truck and pulling off oranges and eating a few of them as we bounced around.

Then we got into the grapefruit rows. I guess my uncle was cutting them in half for me, and one followed another and another and another, and that stretch of the excursion allowed me to eat 6 grapefruit.

Now, obviously, no would think eating 6 grapefruit in essentially a single round would be smart. But, I was a kid and no one as I recall offered up a "Whoa, son, take it easy there".

Or "extreme gastrointestinal distress headed your way". Okay, maybe unlikely that.

Maybe cute little phrases like "Gonna get a tummy ache" or "bad stomach"--uh, not even close.

How about gut-ripping pains that brought me to my knees, or horribly twisted knots in my digestive system that may me whimper like a sick puppy?

Getting closer.

Clearly a moment when you ought to die, need to die, deserve to die.

Oh, the humanity!

That along and along The Grapefruit Diet would become a thing--grapefruit with every meal for a week to 10 days--to be touted as a surefire way to drop 10 pounds baffled me. The thought turned my stomach. To deliberately have grapefruit with every meal for a week or more? Just say no!

Did I ever eat grapefruit again? Hardly ever. Can I remember the last time I had grapefruit. Not really, though I feel safe in saying not for 40 or 50 years. 

But, of course, I o-d'ed on grapefruit. And my friends, not good. Not good at all.