magical mangoes help cramps

Just as I settled into a deep sleep, my husband stumbled out of bed moaning, “I have two cramps in my thigh and one in my calf.”
It wasn’t the first time he had roused me from a deep slumber with a double and triple whammy of cramps seizing his legs after a day of rigorous manual labor. He knew the drill, he kept a stash of bananas on hand to increase his potassium levels, but when eating two and three a day did not halt the night time attacks he began asking what others did to fight cramps.
“Drink pickle juice. Fixes it every time.”
He drained our jars of pickles dry of juice and ate the pickles too.
He woke up with a cramp in his hip and another in his thigh.
“Take Tums.”
He bought a big ole’ jar of chewable tablets and wolfed a couple down before heading to bed after a strenuous day of shingling the roof on his two-story workshop.
Two hours later he woke me with his groans from cramps.
He began eating the midnight snacks of a pregnant woman: Bananas, milk, pickle juice and Tums. And he still had cramps.
One night he reached for a banana to stave off his anticipated agony and came away empty-handed. It was late. Neither of us wanted to go into town. I searched the Internet for other foods with potassium that we might have in the house.
He gobbled down some left-over cantaloupe and headed for bed — and woke up with mild cramps.
From my own experience with feet cramps when I forget to wear socks on cold nights, I suggested he put on snug fitting long johns. He looked at me as if I was out of my mind, but he scrounged in the back of his unused clothing and pulled out a pair of tight fitting long johns. Since he bought them before his body matured, he looked funny, but they helped. I bought him a new, blue, better fitting pair of longjohns which he wore until the warm weather discouraged him from wearing them.
His cramps woke us both up. Desperate for sleep, I remembered that mangoes also had potassium — and we had jar of canned mangoes in the refrigerator. I suggested he try a few.
He snagged a slippery piece from the jar, ate it, went to bed and slept.
The next day he really did not think he had worked hard enough to cramp his legs — but he had. Two hours later he grabbed the jar of mangoes and ate another tidbit. The cramps stopped and he went back to bed.
Until he emptied the jar, magical mangoes brought instant relief every time.
He finished shingling the barn, his cramps stopped and our nights settled down. Then he had some trees cut down and decided to save money and clean up the tree trash himself.
He saved money, I lost sleep.
As he moaned and marched to quench cramps in the middle of the night, I woke up enough to roll over, open his top drawer and pull out his new, blue long johns. “And we do have mango salsa in the refrigerator. You might try that,” I mumbled before falling asleep.
He put on the extra layer of clothes and grimaced as he ate the salsa. He really does not like mango salsa but the cramps stopped immediately. After he told me two days in a row that he did NOT like the salsa – but yes it did stop the cramps, I searched the frozen fruit department in the grocery store and came home with packages of frozen, prepared mangoes. He began a nightly ritual of blending himself a mango fruit smoothie. Thanks to his magical mangoes, he slept, I slept and that’s all I ever wanted anyway.