You can't make this stuff up (#4)

I was thinking of the original situation I encountered that would constitute grounds for a "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" entry and I dug way back into the memory banks for this next one. This story dates back to when I was beginning my graduate school training in Florida. At the time, I had a patient with antisocial personality disorder. When the average person hears “antisocial” they think of someone who likes to stay by him/herself. But antisocial personality disorder is something entirely different. Basically, it is someone with a longstanding pattern of violating the rights of others without remorse. It is not uncommon for such individuals to abuse animals.

So this particular patient comes in one day and tells me that he is sick and tired of his neighbor’s ducks eating from his mango tree and pooping on his lawn. His solution: inject the mangoes with industrial-force insecticide to kill the ducks. Ducks and mango trees are very common in Florida. So he goes on and on telling me how he is going to trick these ducks to eat the poisoned mangoes and kill them. I naturally tried to discourage this.

Well, the next week, I get a call that this patient is in the waiting room for me. When I go out to see him, he says “I have a present for you.” He was completely serious. Both of his arms were extended and in each hand were... two large mangos!!!! He didn’t understand why I refused to take them and to this day, I wonder if he poisoned them. And that my friends is the story of the Mango Man.