Bottled water is your friend
Reflecting back on our road trip, I have learned a very harsh lesson from doing a very stupid thing:
I drank the water.
Big deal, you say, you guys were in California. It's not like you were travelling in Goa or something. But my riposte is that I don't care if you're the other side of the world or the next town over: Don't. Drink. The. Water.
There I am in beautiful Santa Barbara, sitting in the sun, wolfing down a fish taco while staring at the Pacific Ocean. And because I'm in beautiful Santa Barbara, sitting in the sun, wolfing down that fish taco while staring at the Pacific Ocean, I am thirsty. Thirsty enough to thoughtlessly drink down a glass of tap water next to my plate. Down my gullet goes hundreds and thousands of minerals and bacteria cultivated in the Pacific water system, completely alien to my East Coast gastrointestinal system. Those little buggers laid assault as they hurtled through my body and I would say...hmmm...yeah, they won.
I, of the mighty iron stomach, neverending seeker of regional cuisine and new flavors, was felled. Felled by a stinking glass of water. The one who shrugged off a strange rash that materialized after eating in some back alley restaurants with university students in Beijing. This Does Not Happen to Moi. No. This happens to C, he of the thenstitive stomach, he of the Mighty Throne - our commode. Not Me.
But I was so, so wrong. I have never, EVER been so ill in my life! As a result, I'm convinced I have permanently altered the biological makeup of my own body.
That night, as I alternated between curling up on the bed in the fetal position and racing to the bathroom every ten minutes, something had become clear. I had altered the universal balance of things in my relationship with C. Me getting sick from ingesting something...it just doesn't happen! So if I'm actually sick from just that, pigs are about to start flying outside our window and hell is freezing over. And if he still had any illusions that I was this delicate flower of a human being before all this happened, trust me, those have been laid to rest. After moaning, groaning, and releasing insufferable gas through all hours of the night, I don't think my husband will ever look at me the same way again.
So, with a somewhat perplexed air, he fed me a steady diet of Immodium tablets and these electrolyte sachets you dissolve in water. Which, by the way, were the most dees-gust-hing things I have ever tasted in my entire life! It was like drinking water that had been through several rounds in the dishwasher. He couldn't see what I was complaining about, but he's been through this so many times, he probably killed all his taste buds from drinking that stuff.
Seriously, I'm still fascinated with this occurrence even though it's now been over a week since it happened. I never knew my body was even capable of this kind of behavior! And I was very afraid. Not about what was wrong with me and why was my body betraying me this way, but what was going to happen if I dared venture more than twenty feet away from the nearest bathroom. In my case, there was no rest for the weary. For the remainder of the trip, I was somewhat better, but forced to visit many commodes I would not otherwise have seen the interior walls of. Even (shudder) porta-Johns.
Now, raise your right hand and repeat after me: I will not be an asshole like M and drink tap water outside of the 5 mile radius of my home.
So glad we sorted that out.
I drank the water.
Big deal, you say, you guys were in California. It's not like you were travelling in Goa or something. But my riposte is that I don't care if you're the other side of the world or the next town over: Don't. Drink. The. Water.
There I am in beautiful Santa Barbara, sitting in the sun, wolfing down a fish taco while staring at the Pacific Ocean. And because I'm in beautiful Santa Barbara, sitting in the sun, wolfing down that fish taco while staring at the Pacific Ocean, I am thirsty. Thirsty enough to thoughtlessly drink down a glass of tap water next to my plate. Down my gullet goes hundreds and thousands of minerals and bacteria cultivated in the Pacific water system, completely alien to my East Coast gastrointestinal system. Those little buggers laid assault as they hurtled through my body and I would say...hmmm...yeah, they won.
I, of the mighty iron stomach, neverending seeker of regional cuisine and new flavors, was felled. Felled by a stinking glass of water. The one who shrugged off a strange rash that materialized after eating in some back alley restaurants with university students in Beijing. This Does Not Happen to Moi. No. This happens to C, he of the thenstitive stomach, he of the Mighty Throne - our commode. Not Me.
But I was so, so wrong. I have never, EVER been so ill in my life! As a result, I'm convinced I have permanently altered the biological makeup of my own body.
That night, as I alternated between curling up on the bed in the fetal position and racing to the bathroom every ten minutes, something had become clear. I had altered the universal balance of things in my relationship with C. Me getting sick from ingesting something...it just doesn't happen! So if I'm actually sick from just that, pigs are about to start flying outside our window and hell is freezing over. And if he still had any illusions that I was this delicate flower of a human being before all this happened, trust me, those have been laid to rest. After moaning, groaning, and releasing insufferable gas through all hours of the night, I don't think my husband will ever look at me the same way again.
So, with a somewhat perplexed air, he fed me a steady diet of Immodium tablets and these electrolyte sachets you dissolve in water. Which, by the way, were the most dees-gust-hing things I have ever tasted in my entire life! It was like drinking water that had been through several rounds in the dishwasher. He couldn't see what I was complaining about, but he's been through this so many times, he probably killed all his taste buds from drinking that stuff.
Seriously, I'm still fascinated with this occurrence even though it's now been over a week since it happened. I never knew my body was even capable of this kind of behavior! And I was very afraid. Not about what was wrong with me and why was my body betraying me this way, but what was going to happen if I dared venture more than twenty feet away from the nearest bathroom. In my case, there was no rest for the weary. For the remainder of the trip, I was somewhat better, but forced to visit many commodes I would not otherwise have seen the interior walls of. Even (shudder) porta-Johns.
Now, raise your right hand and repeat after me: I will not be an asshole like M and drink tap water outside of the 5 mile radius of my home.
So glad we sorted that out.
posted by Currin Girl at 11:38 AM
1 Comments:
fI know it could have been the water, but there was a phrase that you used not once, but twice, that might account for at least part of your GI issues:
"...wolfing down a fish taco..."
I'm just throwing that out there, that's all.
Glad you're feeling better.
G.
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