Better on the Way Down

Saturday night we went out to eat Thai food with my father and his girlfriend. I’ve only eaten Thai food a handful of times before, so my ordering skills are a little shaky. We decided to try a few new things and ordered this spicy business that you wrapped in cabbage leaves. Then we had some Maki Mono which is this sushi-like business, but we ordered something with smoked salmon instead of straight up raw fish. (Just can't choke down some raw fish. Not happening.)

About 60 seconds after my second piece of the Maki Mono thingy the room started spinning. I excused myself from the table and left for the restroom. I wasn’t sure at that moment if I was going to have to use the potty in a serious way or throw up. About ten seconds later the throw up won the debate. I yacked and yacked. After I thought I was finished, I went back in the stall and yacked some more.

While in the toilet being violently ill, there was another woman in the stall next to me who asked if I was okay and even passed me some damp paper towels over the stall door. I groaned out a weak ‘yes, I'm fine’ between head-in-toilet moments.

Now I have to pause in the story and go to another one for this to make sense. When I was pregnant with the twins, I had this lovely condition called hyperemasis. This is basically defined as uncontrolled vomiting. I threw up in every single eatery on Hwy 280 in Birmingham and in the surrounding areas. I threw up on the way to work, in the parking lot at work, at work in the bathroom and in the trash can in my office, after work on the way home in the bushes behind the Shell station, and everywhere in between. It was unbelievable.

While this vomit party was going on, there was a woman in our office who couldn’t stand it one more second, so she quit using the 6th floor ladies’ room where I worked. She simply walked down a floor to use the potty, because she knew that I was in there bringing up a lung every hour on the hour. Folks would come into the toilet while I was in the stall with the door closed and say, “Hey, Charlotte!” I finally asked someone how they knew it was me every time, and she laughed and said, “Easy. Your feet are always facing the wrong way.”

Okay then.

So, back to the Thai thing...I come out of the toilet face to face with the concerned woman who handed me the towels over the door. Yes, you guessed it. The Fifth Floor Potty Woman. I came out of the stall and she looked at me with this sick look of recognition passing slowing over her face, and forced a smile and hissed through clenched teeth, “So, how far along are you in your pregnancy?”

Now, if I’d been thinking that thing through, I would have lied and said that yes, I was pregnant and made up a due date. Instead, I said, “I think it’s something I ate.”

Pause. Pause. Pause.

The rest of the bathroom stalls cleared out faster than if I'd screamed "Free Beer", and people were practically running over each other for the exits.

Me? I just went back to the table and pretended like nothing had happened at all. I spent the rest of the time pushing food around my plate with my fork. Daddy’s girlfriend said that they were about to come and get me. Good thing they didn’t. That bathroom needed a serious Lysol-ing. And possibly a visit from the Health Department. And the Fifth Floor Potty Lady will never have children. Never ever. I spoiled that deal for her altogether.

I'm pretty sure that officially ended my Thai dining experiences. I know, I know, you've got just one more dish for me to try, but I'm going to have to pass. It reminds me too much of being pregnant, and God knows we want to do our best to forget that deal.