The best way to eat a mango, warm, ripe and juicy as it is, is outside near a body of water, hose or sprinkler, which ever is most appropriate for your locale. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Before you can actually eat your mango, you must peel it, and believe it or not there is a proper way to peel it. In order to protect the fruit, the sap of the mango tree drips down from the stem end of the fruit to cover it. Now, if you peel the mango towards the tip from the stem end, or worse, if you are peeling it using your teeth and bite near the stem end to create a hole, the sap will get on the fruit and make your lips swell and sting. Not the ideal mango eating experience. So peel your mango towards the stem end, and avoid that problem.

Now, your mango will be very juicy, so be prepared. Avoid white shirts as you would in italian restaurants - mangoes make orangey splotches. On the other hand, don't worry about getting juice on your skin. Not only will you smell, well, edible, but the fruit acids in mangoes are good for your skin. Now you can either eat your mango with a knife, and cut it into smaller pieces, or you can simply dig in sans utensils. Either way another caution: the closer you get to the flat pit, the stringier the flesh will get and the more likely it is it will stick between your teeth. Once this happens, it is concievable that no amount of flossing will remove it. Exercise care.

So now that you are eating your mango, smile. It seems a little nicer out now, doesn't it? Imagine what it was like for the first explorers from Europe to discover these kinds of tropical bounties after weeks and months at sea. Had it been me, I would have been loath to wash the sweet juice from my skin and would instead have savored it, the sunshine, and the feel of earth beneath my feet. When you are finished indulging, dip into the water, run through the sprinkler, what have you.

Your mango is done.

P.S. Despite any passions you may develop for the mango, I do not recommend eating them above either your computer or your cat, no matter how good it tastes after the first bite. Trust me. It makes them both sticky and annoyed.