Mayday! Code Blue! Or Red! Or Something!

Last night I thought I was going to die. Literally, as in “up in the middle of the night googling “Heart attack vs. Heartburn” and trying to diagnose myself on a spotty internet connection” going to die. I thought about calling my sister and telling her my goodbyes but before I did that, I browsed the web to see what was going on.

First, it felt like I had grown a blow torch in my chest. Being that I have never really experienced heartburn, I was terrified. I spent well over an hour shifting positions, downing Pepto to no avail, and the only thing that seemed to work was eventually time. I walked around my room for a bit and whatever was coming up to terrorize me in my sleep went back down.

I consider myself to have a pretty solid stomach. For example, I’ve had Indian food the first day off the Master Cleanse. Without blinking. So I was pretty surprised last night. But I have officially met my match. I looked up “mild” in the dictionary here to see if there’s some word I should be using when ordering food, but it doesn’t exist. I have emailed my family who hasn’t left the states yet begging for Tums, Rolaids, Mylanta, Holy Water and blessings from Baby Jesus so that I can keep eating without feeling like people are palancing on my chest in my sleep.

Because the food is just too good to stop. And the rent is too damn high for me to pay for this plane ticket and not eat for a week. And my play cousin Chiefy and his friends are coming to pick me up and play in the streets today! No time for bellyaching. Too much liming and palancing to be done. Wait, do they lime in Africa? And Palance? I’m mixing cultures. Please forgive me.

Wish me luck (and Rolaids). I wonder if a beer will help. Beer makes everything better. Off to the bar…