Occupational Hazard

At 3:00am this Saturday I woke with sweat ringing my neck and a sharp violent pain in my abdomen. I was sleeping on my best friend’s couch and her six-month-old twin girls were sleeping fitfully in a nearby room. Just before going to sleep that night, my friend reminded me that her house was haunted by a child ghost. She said, however, that I shouldn’t worry because ghosts were common household pests like mice or roaches.

Ghost crap freaks me out, but let me tell you when I woke in the dark with that pain in my stomach all I could think about was getting to the bathroom. From there followed an unpleasant shuttle run between the couch and bathroom that lasted about an hour. I was being squeezed and contorted in good exorcist fashion. My body was emptying itself of some bad bug and it didn’t much care which exit was used.

That night I earned my stripes. I had been working on a review of a local Boston restaurant. Always the scapegoat, I feel inclined to blame a beautiful plate of garlicky mussels for my unfortunate state. Despite the pain I felt like a champ, like a hockey player who had lost his first tooth or a sailor with his first tattoo. I was a food writer with her first on-the-job case of food poisoning. That’s right people, I’m in the big leagues. Put my right hand on the French Laundry cookbook and swear me in.

3 comments:

  1. Oh my God! Felled by a plate of bad mussels!

    Welcome to the Big Leagues, kid!

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  2. My first ever bout with food poisoning was last summer. Not a good event. At first I thought I had swine flu. I blamed leftover chinese food.

    The best mussels I ever et was from Legal Seafoods. I think they were in garlic and white wine. There used to be a chinese restaurant nearby that had a buffet that included mussels. I used to go there just FOR the mussels.

    For some reason I don't do mussels at home. The price is right, I have a steamer, so maybe I'll give it a try soon.

    By the way, most of your posts sound like the beginning of a classic novel.

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  3. Ripama, I figure you gotta start big if you want to keep them around. Besides my degree is in English Lit. so I'm sticking with my roots. I've never done mussels at home either.

    TKW, thanks for the welcome. Nothing like a good bout of self induced hazing to make a girl feel like she has arrived.

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FOOD IS ONE OF THE MOST VISCERAL ASPECTS OF A CULTURE; IT CAN BE EXPERIENCED WITH NO LANGUAGE SKILLS, NO GUIDE, AND MOST TIMES WITH VERY LITTLE MONEY.