We went to our favorite Thai food joint yesterday and my stomach is showing signs of the great battle to come. It has that little constant state of "cramp-rumble" that tells me there will be some rocking and praying going on in the near future. Come on fellas, you know what I'm talking about. It is a little upsetting because I used to be able to eat Spicy number 7. (Basically pure fire. One could power a small town of Irish immigrants on the nuclear fusion going on in a plate of Chicken Fried Rice, spicy number 7. Or line the highway with sever hundreds of these glowing plates in the dead of night to signal a landing runway for some airplane needing an emergency landing. You get the picture.)
Now I can't even handle number 3. My stomach protests. A storm's a brewin'. I feel like a girl, or a young gentle worship leader in designer jeans.
I saw signs of this weakening of my appetite the last time Amber left town to NYC. It was late and I thought I would order a large pepperoni and sausage pizza from Pizza Hut, sit down and watch myself the Godfather. Because that's what men do that are all-alone and missing their wife. They remind themselves that they are not pathetic piles of primordial putty, pining away for affection. How do we remind ourselves? By watching the Godfather and eating a whole friggin pizza. "Harrumph! *Belch-fart*"
I made it halfway through the Godfather and I dozed off with a piece of pizza crust dangling from my lips. I went to bed and woke up 2 hours later, 4:00 a.m., with a raging heartburn that could rival the grumpiest old man, cursing a dust bowl in June.
I tried to drink Soymilk, take a Rolaids, drink water... nothing could cool the embers flickering in my chest. Finally I made a visit to the local Krusty Mart at 4:30 a.m. and bought a pile of those individually packed Zantacs. It took 4 to cool the raging flame that was my chest.
So now I await the forces of Spicy number three and will beg for mercy when the time comes. So humiliating. It's like being taken over by Canada. Or worse, France.
11 comments:
Wuss. Come on, Sally, be a man and eat #7 again. The only way to overcome it is to go through it.
Unlike Euphrony, I will not be playing the "Seth is a Wuss" card on this one.
There was some sort of rapid descent that occurred in my eating abilities, so that by the time I hit about thirty-five, I was a full-on lightweight. Gone were the days of eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
And to the would-be smack-talkers: Go ahead and try denial. I double-dog dare you. Oh sure, you'll look cool in front of all your friends wolfing down all that smokin' hot grub. But you'll pay dearly later on. Yes you will.
"I feel like a girl, or a young gentle worship leader in designer jeans."
Great lines, especially the above.
I'd taunt you, too, but I have never been able to eat anything more flaming than just over medium, and even that leaves my bowels with issues. Of course, being likened to a guy that goes by mamasboy has to be an insult in itself. Welcome to wuss-land.
MB
I'm with Euph, you big girl! I'm heading out for some Bankok Royale five-star in your honor. If it doesn't make me cry then I won't even bother calling it hot.
Dude...I used to have the same problem.
Here's what you do: get yourself a juicer, and juice about a half or quarter of a head of cabbage and drink that every morning for a few days.
Seriously. It works. Way better and healthier than being on Zantac or Prilosec.
There's something about the enzymes in cabbage juice that settles your stomach down and cures acid reflux. Also, lay off any sugar and too much salt. Those will throw your system out of balance in a hurry.
Serious about the cabbage juice, bro. Nothing else worked for me. You don't hear about that simple cure because the drug companies would rather sell you a drug for it.
I can eat spicy food with no problem now. Spicy food isn't the problem. It merely aggravates it.
There are so many wrong statements in this post, Seth. Let me highlight a few:
"there will be some rocking and praying going on in the near future"
Gross. And then:
Now I can't even handle number 3.... I feel like a girl..."
So what are you saying, huh? That girls can't take it? I could eat spicy circles around your sad number 3.
And the wrong-est of all wrong statements:
"So humiliating. It's like being taken over by Canada. Or worse, France."
Just wrong.
Man, even your wife is smacking ya down on this one, Seth. Follow The Stan's advice - simply being able to say that you dring juiced cabbage should help you save some face.
C-ham, I take after my dad. He's 70 this year, and the only thing that keeps him from downing a full gallon jar opf sliced jalepenos from Sam's every two weeks is the fact that his doc (and my mom) won't let him eat that much cheesey nachos. My older bro is nearly 40 and is the same way. Bring it on, baby!
What is weird is that I can eat jalapenos. Something about the mixture of MSG, oil, rice, and hot-fire pepper just acts as intestinal Drano to my system. The pizza thing, I had coming.
Fancy... It is a well-known fact that men are tougher than women in only one area, hot-spice consumption.
The ladies can push that 2-liter bottle-baby's head right out of their vagina, or stick their hands in scalding-hot-flesh-melting dish-water, but when it comes to spicy food, you my dear... eat our shorts.
Cach, the crying, I can handle, its the hot, burning, smelly water exploding out of my rear that causes me to pause when thinking of the higher number.
bastardo. I love and miss Bankok. Waco's best food joint.
Yeah, I guess I should have clarified, too -- I can eat jalapeños and other hot things. I still do quite often. I love the fire-hot buffalo wings at our local sports bar. But I think where I developed problems had more to do with quantity, and the mixture of certain things with certain other things, and the time of day that I do my eating.
Up until I was in my mid to late twenties, I weighed 130 pounds and could eat an almost unlimited amount of food at a single sitting, any time night or day. I ate two fully-loaded Pizza Hut large pan pizzas all by myself once. $15 worth of Taco Bell grub at 3AM? No problem! Any combination of spices, meats, grease, and random unidentified edible food products had no noticeable effect on my constitution.
But in all likelihood, seriously, I think I abused this capability. I was gluttonous and lived like a lot of twenty-somethings do. The first sign of trouble (which is probably hereditary, not related to bad habits) came in my early 30's, when I spent the better part of a year almost continually sick to my stomach and with bad indigestion. Turned out that I had developed lactose intolerance, and without realizing it, was starting off each day with a big bowl of cereal in milk. Oops.
Then, like what Seth is referring to, I started noticing that I had to be much more careful about what I eat, and particularly, when I eat it. Too much pizza or spicy stuff too close to bedtime, means lying awake most of the night, sweating from my metabolism being all cranked up, and hating the gross taste of undigested burped-up spices. And though about 85% of the time I can eat the spiciest, meanest thing earlier in the day with no problems, for some reason, the other 15% of the time it sends me running for the john within less than an hour. Something just doesn't settle or digest right on those times, and I don't know why, but it seems to have to do with certain food combinations. You would think this would stop me from ever eating spicy, meaty, greasy, or crappy food, but it doesn't. It just means I spend part of my life suffering now, and feeling like I was dumb for eating what I did.
Quantity is the main reason I call myself a "lightweight" now. I just can't finish nearly as much food at a single sitting as I used to. And I should admit that in a sense, this is a good thing. Because even though we like to joke about it, the truth is that it's pretty common for Americans to indulge in the sin of gluttony. I'm not sure exactly why we think this one is funny and others are serious, but we do.
And one final thing (because this comment is not quite long enough yet)... I can't stand cabbage or cabbage juice, but I wonder if the beneficial effect that The Stan is talking about might have to do with cultivating the healthy bacteria in the stomach? Several months ago, we started eating a lot of yogurt and I have also noticed substantial beneficial effects in regards to digestion.
Seth said:
"It is a well-known fact that men are tougher than women in only one area, hot-spice consumption."
You don't know my fiancee, Alba! I grew up in South Texas and I pride myself in my ability to handle the heat. But Alba is in a whole new league beyond me!
Something about the Mexican diet. She can eat habaneros for breakfast!
She's made salsa so hot, my mouth is flaming like a dragon for hours! Then when I had to go, I felt like a blast-ended skrewt!
But then there she is, calmly eating the nuclear meltdown salsa like it was nothing!
Every meal, she has some kind of spicy pepper she's chewing on. That woman is INTENSE when it comes to handling spicy food.
She puts even me to shame.
Mexican Women don't count. It is like comparing women who can swim to Mermaids.
That is stinking funny though about the salsa. I have tried something of the sorts myself and I think I coughed up blood.
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