The real midlife crisis is realizing you don’t know how to buy a mango.
But let’s start at the beginning. Before I was personally betrayed by a mango, I visited my doctor for a full check-up. It seemed like a good time to find out whether my original parts were still functioning as advertised.
My cholesterol was a little high, but not high enough for medication. Instead, I received a beautiful pamphlet called “How to Manage Your Cholesterol.”*
*How to Manage Your Cholesterol: a 16-page document designed to make you feel personally responsible for every piece of cheesecake you’ve accidentally inhaled.
What the doctor neglected to mention was that this new regime came with a soul-crushing side hustle called “produce management,” with no unsubscribe button in sight.
Since starting this plan, my days (and nights) have been filled with chopping, peeling, steaming, and more wistful sighs than I care to admit. I barely have time to make it to work, let alone appear employed when I get there.
To be clear, I fully recognize that produce management is not a bad deal, health-wise. Many people contend with much more.
But allow me a quick moment to vent about this past week’s worst offender because mangoes are master gaslighters.
They sit there, taunting you with their beautiful colours and the confidence of produce that knows something you don’t. You give them a little squeeze every night, pretending you speak “fruit” and hoping they can’t smell fear.
Then, when you finally muster up the courage to slice into one, it’s secretly rotting on the inside. What’s worse is you immediately remember this never happened at your parents’ house.
How did they do it?
Were they undercover mango whisperers?
I never called my mom for her secret. Partly because I’m an adult… but mostly because I know how that conversation would end.
She’d listen to my entire mango crisis, pause, and say, “You’re not buying the right ones.”
I’d ask what the “right ones” were.
There’d be another longer pause. Then: “You just know.”
So here I remain… midlife, mildly hypercholesterolemic, and emotionally invested in more types of produce than I care to admit.
If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen, trying to implement page 7 of the pamphlet: “Assume You’re Doing It Wrong.”
Nayla Mitha 