I Just Ate A Raw Rambutan Seed And Apparently I Am Going To Die?
Last week, like many folks in America, I had family in town for the holidays. On Wednesday, it was our turn to entertain them as they wanted to check out our house and do some touristy crap. Against my better judgement I accepted the assignment and we planned to make a day out of it.
The day was to start at the West Side Market. It's a big indoor market that all the suburban Ricks and Staceys come to every weekend with their Cleveland t-shirts on to take Instagram pictures. The type of place you'd rather shoot yourself then step foot in during the week between Christmas and New Years.
The market itself, however, is pretty cool. It has around 50 vendors selling butchered meats, homemade jams, fresh pasta, and even exotic fruits. We'll get to the exotic fruit and my current predicament in a moment.
My step dad hadn't been there in years and was like a kid in a candy store. A Slovenian boy from east Cleveland, the guy loves smokies. I mean he fucking LOVES them. He went stand to stand buying smokies like there was going to be a pandemic style toilet paper run on those greasy meat sticks.
Once he had two giant bags full he began trying to push them on everyone he came in contact with like an after school special drug dealer. "Here, have a smokie. It will change your life!" Next thing you know he has a crowd of people following him around trying to get another hit off those salty meat dicks. He was like the pied piper of heart failure.
I was so enthralled by my step dad and his meat junkies I barely paid attention when my Aunt Barb handed me two hairy nut looking things and told me what they were. The only thing I remember her saying was to break them open and don't eat the white part.
Fast forward a week later and here I am, strung out from 10 straight days of drinking and eating every cookie I could get my bloated fingers on, trying to kick off Dry January and my New Year's diet the right way. I made some dinner and then instead of having a typical sweet treat afterwards, I thought it was a good idea to try out whatever the fuck that thing was that Aunt Barb gave me.
Without so much as opening Google, I cut into the hard exterior and cracked one open like a nut. My fiance and I stared at it trying to figure out the hell to do with this alien testicle looking bastard. The white part felt gelatinous and did not look appetizing whatsoever. Plus, I remembered Aunt Barb telling me not to eat the white part…I think.
Whatever, it's a fruit what's the worst that could happen? I ripped off that fatty layer of pale grossness and grabbed the delicious looking seed. It closely resembled a large pistachio nut. Something I am quite fond of. In fact, if you have a bowl of pistachios at your house and invite me over those things are as good as gone. Just like my step dad with his pulverized pork fiends, I cannot resist the salty deliciousness of those tiny green morsels.
I threw it in my mouth and chomped it down in no time flat. Not the most delicious thing I have ever eaten but not the worst either. Just then my son walks into the kitchen and goes, "Oh cool, Rambutan! Watch out, they have super poisonous seeds but the fruit is supposed to be amazing."
I'm sorry, did you say poisonous?! I grabbed my phone and before I could even spell out Rambutan, Google suggested "What to do if you eat a Rambutan seed." What. The. Fuck.
But how poisonous are we talking here? Because I do all kinds of stuff that is terrible for me on a weekly basis and I'm still kickin'. No way this puny little monkey ball could be my end, right?
Well fuck me. Of all the dumb shit I have done in my life THIS is the thing that is going to take me out? Unbelievable.
My next move was the same one pretty much all of us do when something awful happens in our lives: I went to social media to bitch about it. You know how sometimes you wish you could pretend to die and see what everyone says about you after you're gone? Well don't. Because no one gave two shits that I apparently just ate poisonous produce.
Damnit, that last one is funny. But now my limbs are starting to feel numb, I'm slightly dizzy, AND I have this bastardized version of Ram Jam's - Black Betty stuck in my head. Am I really feeling ill from this exotic nut or is this some janky placebo effect?
My fiance keeps telling me I'm being dramatic but how the hell does she know? These damn things are native to Malaysia and as far as I know she's never been there. Then again we did break up for a short a few years back and she talked to some dude named Derek who was a model. I'm pretty sure he had business there.
Anyway, here's hoping I wake up tomorrow. But if not, I had a good run. And at least I won't ever have to see another one of those God damn dance with my hands Tiktoks ever again.
By the way the white meat of the fruit was delicious. 9/10 would try again minus the death nut.