Mangoes are ripe for creation of app

Overheard from the next table at the food court (and going on the assumption that following a loud conversation in a public place is “overhearing” rather than “eavesdropping” since the act is passive as opposed to, say, pressing your ear to the wall of a neighboring hotel room):

“You called Shirley?”

“Yeah. She cannot take any more right now.”

“How about Carol?”

“Carol get too much already.”

“What about Harold and Harold’s family? You called them to ask?”

“They didn’t answer. But we just gave them last week.”

“Gotta go soon, you know. Right now is perfect. We wait next week, bumbye rotten.”

There was intensity to the conversation, a big problem to be solved, a deadline looming.

Summer brings mango season, and mango season brings a kind of emotional burden. For people with backyard trees that seem to light up with a golden constellation of ripe fruit all at once, there is the burden of trying to find good homes for the delicious fruit while keeping thieving birds and thieving humans away from the bounty. People are delighted, proud, even relieved to give a bag of pink and yellow mangoes, gleaming like gems, to a friend or neighbor. They feel so wronged if the same mangoes are pecked to death by birds or stolen by strangers with long picking poles to be sold for profit.

For those who do not have ready access to mango trees or who have trees that are going through an off year, there is the burden of want. They know that somewhere out there some auntie is foisting a 15-pound bag of fruit on a neighbor who already has more than they know what to do with, yet here they sit in their kitchen, all ready to make chutney or bread but no mango to do it with.

Somebody has to invent an app. A mango app. Like Uber, but for mangoes.

There could be a map of a neighborhood. People with mango trees could sign in and choose a status: mangoes for sale, mangoes for free, or JUST COME TAKE WHAT YOU WANT THE TREE IS GOING CRAZY. Mango trees not on the app are people who just don’t want to play along. Their mangoes, their business. Leave alone.

Then people who desperately want underripe mangoes for pickling, ripe mangoes for smoothies, overripe mangoes for bread or rotten mangoes for pigs can connect with people who are happy to provide. Like eHarmony or Tinder for mangoes, or MatchMango.com.

There are already posts all over social media about mango supplies and mango demands, but what’s needed is something real-­time. Mango season requires constant updates. Today’s tree-full could be tomorrow’s all-picked-out.

Bringing a brown paper bag full of mangoes to the neighbors or into the break room at work is such a sweet tradition. It feels like you have something really wonderful worth sharing. There has to be a modern spin to take the anxiety out of mango season.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.