Barbecue blues

The weather was beautiful today so I headed out for a hike in the Blue Hills Reservation outside Boston. It was truly lovely, with bright blue, clear skies, warm air, and lots of people out with their dogs. I can't wait for summer!

I really needed a good day in the fresh air, too. I went out with some friends for a friend's birthday last night. We went out for barbecue and it just did not agree with me.

Later in the night, I said that I felt less than fresh. J asked if I had indigestion. But you know, the pain I was experiencing seemed way too intense to be something like post barbecue indigestion! It seemed more along the lines of....appendicitis!

Why, oh why do my friends find my discomfort so amusing? They should be gathering around me with concern, not pointing and laughing! It's always been this way.

Many years ago, I went to a barbecue restaurant in Atlanta with my friends, Joe and Erin. I don't remember the name of the barbecue joint, only that the walls were festooned with images of insanely happy cartoon pigs. Which seemed a little strange to me. I mean, if I were moments away from being turned into a pulled meat sandwich, I wouldn't be the least bit happy. These pigs looked like they had just won the bovine lottery or something. Strange.

But, I digest.

Later, during a movie, I experienced pain so intense and unyielding that I was positive that I was dying. (I don't remember what movie we went to see, as I spent the entire time kneeling on the floor ---the disgusting, sticky, slime covered floor -- with my head on the seat -- the disgusting, movie-popcorn-butter and fart-dust covered movie theater seat!) My entire torso was pulsating in pain. I was sweating, nauseous, and dizzy. I looked up at my friends and said "I think I'm having a heart attack. We need to leave. Now. I have to get to an emergency room."

They laughed at me. LAUGHED! Something about me being 27 with no cardiac risk factors and no family history of heart disease not to mention I had chowed down a giant pulled pork sandwich a mere two hours before. Whatever! I told them that they'd be sorry if I died, because I'd come back and haunt the two of them for the rest of their lives!!

Turns out they were right and I was wrong. But still.

So last night, when I told J that she may need to drive me to the emergency room later if the pain didn't subside, the response was pretty much the same.

"SO let me get this straight. I drive you to the emergency room so they can ask you what you had to eat earlier in the evening and you can say barbecue? And when they ask you if you tried TUMS or Pepto or Maalox, you'll say....?"

"Oh!" I said. "That's not a bad idea. I should go get some digestive medication!" As luck would have it, we just received a sample of Pepto Bismoquick dissolve tablets in the mail that day.

Fifteen minutes later, I looked over at J: "Hey! You were right. I feel much better. No wonder you're such a good nurse!"

J looked back at me. "Yeah. Imagine that."

Whatever. Barbecue or no barbecue, it could have totally been serious!