The Fed

There's No Pain Like That of the Gut

Every sport has its dangers. In football and soccer, it’s muscle damage. In sailing, it’s the weather. In skydiving, it’s the ground. We gluttons risk a far greater threat: Food Poisoning. Personally, I have prayed to the porcelain gods and I had a hell of a time deciding which end of me should face Mecca.

The summer after my freshman year, I rented a room in a grad student’s apartment. New York had been swimming in the heat and humidity for months. I lived at 109th and Amsterdam, and my soul, my soul for an air-conditioner, but they weren’t buying.

One of my dad’s friends took me out to dinner on a Friday night to Gabriela’s on 91st and Amsterdam, for my first true taste of "Mexican" food (I had been told that Wien Taco Bell didn’t count). I had chicken fajitas with those jalapeno pickles (oh so sweet and juicy). When we left, I had a bit of a tummyache, so I went home early to sleep in my sweat-inducing rainforest of a room. Sleep was not good. I tossed. I turned. I began to think that I had swallowed a midget with an egg-beater, and he was trying to get out: one way or another. At times, I suspected there were two, since they seemed to attack everywhere at once. It felt like someone was using the thirty-odd feet of my intestine as knitting material. In short, I felt pooey.

The heat was sticking to me. In flashes of sleep, I heard contentious speeches from my major digestive organs, debating whether or not they should secede from the rest of my body. This kind of fantasy occurs when, like me, you’re southern. It’s perfectly normal. It just seemed apropos this time. I woke up at two, too pained to move.

I needed to puke. Much as I disliked the idea, there wasn’t anything to do about it other than hold it the ten feet to the toilet. I crawled over, knelt in front of the toilet, puked, and simultaneously shat myself. I filled my knickers with the nastiest stuff that ever came out of me. Damn you, jalapeno pickles. Even now I think of you and my stomach twists.

I cursed those damn peppers for the next seven hours. The toilet is a lousy early morning companion. At 9, I struggled the five blocks uptown to Health Services, where they gave me a vomit tray & an IV, and let me mercifully, mercifully sleep at last.

I should mention here that I don’t blame Gabriela’s. It’s a nice restaurant, and in the long run, this kind of thing can happen anywhere. So who do I blame? Pac-man. I know Pac-man’s been holding a grudge against me since the late 80’s when I said Ms. Pac-man was much better than he was. I know that little yellow bastard skinked in there and poisoned my chicken. So now, I’m coming for him. He won’t know where I coming from and then Bam! I leave his round yellow carcass for those wandering ghosts to eat. Watch out Pac-man. I’m coming for you.