In which I discover I am allergic to bananas and also met the Green Bay Packers

After I got back from my little Thanksgiving automotive incident, we came back to school to live out the rest of our time together in blissful romanticness. Sweet, huh? Hold onto your gag reflexes. You'll need them later.

So, we were beginning to talk about what would happen when he graduated. He was going to move to Tampa, which was only two hours south, and coincidentally, where my parents lived. We never even entertained the idea that we would separate. He'd set up his apartment and career, and I'd finish up my degree. As soon as possible.

He decided that one weekend before he graduated, we'd head to Tampa to have a fancy dinner, and stay the night at a fancy hotel. He was taking me to Bern's Steakhouse, which is legendary in Tampa for steak and atmosphere, and we'd be staying at a hotel on Harbor Island. We just, um....well, we weren't going to mention it to my parents and all. It was a fool-proof plan. This was before the time of cell phones, so if they called me at home on a Sunday morning, it wasn't unusual for the phone to go to the answering machine.

So, I had one more sorority function on the Friday night before we headed out on Saturday. I went to this other sorority, I don't remember what for, but I was approached by a girl who said "I heard you were getting his letters." I couldn't believe it. Oh no she did-unt. I sassed her back, but I doubt she was remorseful. Now the weekend was off to a great start. I hadn't thought he would give me his letters (lavaliere), and now the surprise was ruined.

But I was in for another surprise...

We checked into the hotel, dropped our stuff off, and headed out to dinner. It was beautiful. I'd never been anywhere fancy like that, so he did the ordering for me. We had escargots and steak tartare and those were just the appetizers. I tried the caviar but was immediately grossed out. Not because it was fish eggs, but merely the saltiness of it. Blech. After dinner, we went to the dessert room. They have a whole room for desserts, where you call the pianist and request a song. We had two desserts. Bananas Foster and some sort of cheesecake-y type item.

I have never liked bananas. The texture in my mouth is disgusting. However, if you put ice cream and cognac on top of it, I'll pretty much eat anything. So, I took out the Bananas Foster pretty quickly. The. whole. thing. George was too nervous to eat. As I'm finishing off the whole banana, he brought up our future and gave me his lavaliere (a necklace with his fraternity letters) and his fraternity pin. We blissfully talked about when we got married, etc. Meanwhile, I started getting a very itchy throat and ear, and was developing a nagging cough.

Right now, mentally play back the scene in the movie Hitch when he develops a food allergy. That was me. Only, in the beginning, it didn't come on so quickly. Here we were having a lovely dessert, and the conversation was like this:
G: I love you so much.
J: I *hack* love you *hack hack* so much *hack hack hack * too.
G: Honey, are you okay?
J: *hock hock* scratch ear, scratch ear, drink big gulp of water "I'm okay. My throat just tickles a little."

It was beautiful. After the bill was paid, we set off to go to the hotel. We got to the monorail to take us over to Harbor Island and saw a couple of people standing outside the hotel, but didn't pay much attention. Now, lest you think we were headed in a different direction, we'd discussed beforehand that there would be no panky of the hanky kind that evening. Just two young lovers with nothing better to do. (Name that song. And if you can, I will give you 500 bonus cool points in my book).

We get to the hotel, and I'm just about ready to claw my eyeballs out, and what are those bumps all over my arms and legs that itch so much? Of course, at the fanciest hotel on Harbor Island, there are mirrors. Everywhere. George quickly sped me past those to the elevator. We get in and there is only one other man on the elevator. A very large black man. As the doors closed, I am faced with my true reflection. And it turns out, those bumps that are known as hives are not just on my arms and legs, but my face as well. But it was getting harder to see them because my eyes were swelling shut. I did what any woman would do in this situation.

I started crying and flipped out. Oh my cow! What has happened to me?! What's wrong with my face?!?! George is pretty silent, but the very large black man is now trying to calm me down and comfort me. "Oh honey, you look fine. You look real nice in your dress. Don't cry now. You'll just make it worse." I vividly remember the man in the elevator trying to get me to stop crying. Later, George said he wasn't sure if he should comfort me or just give me over to the man in the elevator because he was so much bigger than him.

By the time I made it to the room, the lips were swelling up pretty nicely as well. George had pre-ordered champagne and strawberries to be sent to the room, but I was not so much interested. For those of you that don't know, if someone is having an anaphalactic reaction to an allergen, they should be taken to the hospital immediately. Unless they're somewhere that their parents don't know they are, and will be promptly killed when said parents find out, rendering the hospital visit unnecessary.

I did the next best thing, which would also be portrayed years later in the movie Hitch. I sent George to the grocery store for mass quantities of Benadryl while I took a bath and examined the damage. And oh, was there damage! Head to toe rash of hives. Lips swollen, eyelids swollen, throat itchy. Misery at it's finest. After the Benadryl, I passed out in the hotel robe and George polished off the strawberries and champagne.

The next morning, it was checkout time. We were on the seventh floor, or something like that. We gathered our belongings and headed out the door. George let me look in the mirror once, as he had been expertly shielding me from the sight of...myself...for the morning. Even though I wasn't itching as much, it still wasn't a pretty sight. At all. I basically looked like the victim of a domestic violence incident.

We were the last two people to fit on the elevator. There were a bunch of bigger gentlemen behind us wearing Green Bay Packers paraphernalia. And the elevator stopped on the next three floors going down, each time the doors opening up to another group of large men wanting to get on and get to the lobby. The whole time down George was making nervous small talk.

"Honey, I'm so sorry you had that allergic reaction. Still no idea what it was you ate that made you all puffy? Maybe you should take some more Benadryl to see if the swelling will go down."

When we got out of the elevator, I asked him what was wrong with him, and he said he was afraid that those guys thought he beat me up. Funny...

As we left the hotel, we saw throngs of fans outside the hotel and spoke to someone that led us to the conclusion that those bigger gentlemen weren't Packers fans, but instead the team itself, heading out to their game against the Buccaneers. If I hadn't been so disfigured, I'd have gone in to talk to them and made a different kind of fool of myself.

When we got in the car to go back to Gainesville, George found a special CD, and play Sammy Kershaw's song "She don't know she's beautiful" for me.

It's okay. You can throw up now.