Growing Intolerance

My family used to go strawberry picking every spring or summer. There are several different farms around that produce whole fields of the bright red berries, and depending on the prices, we'd go to a different one every year. My parents always warned me about pesticides, but I would sneak a few of the juicy red fruits into my mouth when they weren't looking. After we finished picking, the old man at the gate who ran the strawberry field would jokingly tell me that he was going to do a tongue check to make sure I didn't eat any. He must have known by my bright red tongue, but he always laughed and then just let my parents pay for the ones we picked.
We'd return home with arms full of the little green cartons filled to the brim with big, triangular, deeply rouged berries, and I would hurry for them, enjoying every ripe bite with sugar or without. We never cooked with them, really. We just ate them, plain and simple, sometimes with whipped cream and other times with cereal.
They were my favorite food, but I never really realized. One year, we brought home even more than usual, a bumper crop of strawberries in our hands. And I ate them. Probably more than my little body could hold. I don't think I realized I was eating so many strawberries, but since they were going fast, I must have been. Strawberries with breakfast, strawberries for lunch and after dinner. If I was going out into the yard, I brought a handful, just in case I was out there for a long time and got hungry. I rode my bicycle with a handful of them, I'd sneak out of bed to grab a few, I'd bring them to my room when I was playing with my dolls. They must have disappeared in just a few days. And then, one morning, I woke up, and I scratched.
My stomach. My arms. My neck. All bright pink with spots and scratches. My mom took a glance at them, and concluded that I must be allergic to strawberries. When I shouted my dismay, she admitted that it could also be the pesticides. She returned to her reading, and sulking, I walked away.
It wasn't the pesticides, unfortunately for me. Since then, I have lusted after strawberries. For awhile after my diagnosis, I would still eat everything strawberry. Since I grew into the allergy, and it wasn't severe at first, my parents still kept the fruit in the house. I distinctly remember a night when my father had bought a container of strawberry ice cream, and thinking that just a little bit wouldn't hurt me, I helped myself to a few scoops. But after that helping, I still wasn't satisfied, and I thought, " Just one more scoop." And before I knew it, just a small serving must have turned into half of the box. And I was just fine, pleased with myself for having defeated my allergy. Little did I know that the fruit residing in my stomach was plotting its revenge for when I least expected it. I threw up the contents of my stomach that night, and woke in a puddle of pink, melted, half digested strawberry ice cream. I never tried that again.
As the allergy has grown worse, I've become almost afraid of strawberries. I can't even touch them anymore, and I obsessively check ingredients lists on the backs of cartons and wrappers, just in case. Just the sweet, tart smell makes me cringe.
We discovered, a few years back, that my allergy was caused by a chemical in the strawberry, called Salicylic Acid. Apparently, Salicylic acid is in everything- acne medications, lotions, oranges, kiwis, tomatoes, asprin.
So I live my life in paranoid fear, and find my allergies one by one.