Seafood. You Get It? See Food?!

It started as a tiny murmur.

You know those summer days in the middle of August that feel.. thick? The ones that, as a child, you practiced your dog-paddle through, you'd argue with mom and dad for ten minutes, insisting beyond their heat-and-humidity-shortened patience that you could, in fact, play with the neighborhood kids without fear of heatstroke. You returned barely ten minutes later, panting and bathed in sweat. That's how full I was, after the China King Buffet. Little did I know that on the five-hour drive back home, that one of those infamous summer storms was fast abrew in my digestive tract.

As I felt the clouds gather, there was one distinct tornado-siren of a thought: Get thee to a bathroom, and STAT.

Stupidly, my pride and fear of communicable disease halted me of ridding myself of the questionable scallops int he most conventional (and immediate) manner. Although the first couple of wretches seemed almost to promise a release, a woman--and the half-dozen children attached to her hips--came into the bathroom. The idea of putting on a three part symphany (introduction, climax, finale) for them, and the realization of just how often public bathrooms are sanitized, quelled the urge to vomit. I got in the car, where the love of my life was waiting with Pepto Bismol and Advil.

I managed to sleep the ride away, waking only a few times to let out a groan. When we returned home, I stumbled up the steps to our apartment with my eyes closed. I stripped, demanded the window opened, and fell on the bed in one ungraceful motion, all before realizing that all was still not right in my tummy.

Now, plagued with scenarios of myself on TV--dying in bed with a news microphone stuck in my face--hearing a reporter in the background explaining "And if only she hadn't been to vain to purge the offensive food, she may have avoided this horrific strain of salmonella/bochelism/leprosy.

Calming me slightly (and if anything allows me to sleep tonight, it's welcomed, believe you me) is the vision of myself suing the Pepto Bismol company for near-murder, citing their ability to "cure" nausea. Without it's "help", I could have ended the torture where it should have ended - with a steaming pile of regurgitated chinese.