the bright star.

slap the next person who tells you that eating street food in india and thailand will land you in an E.R. tell them it's not true. that it isn't true eating unclean, porous made-of-basic-component-carbon food which absorbs ozone-depleting particles swirling in smog above is dangerous. that you might, god forbid, catch some kind of pigeon-shit-borne disease from eating puffed flour balls in india or delicious banana pancakes in thailand.

for the home made pita of dali is far more potent.

i survive street food a hundred times, and i do not survive my own fuckin' omelette pita. what are you trying to tell me, god? that i should have gone to the gym instead?

food poisoning is caused by either virus or bacteria. most of the viruses that cause food poisoning are transmitted by food that has been contaminated by faecel matter. i don't recall shitting on my toasted pita (yes, i am THAT paranoid all the time), into my jar Heinz pickles, into my delicious bottle of creamy Waitrose reduced fat mayo but WAIT! perhaps that hen DID shit on that egg. muthafuckin hens.

but i've eaten say 2184 eggs since perhaps the first egg i was introduced to by my parents, so i can't blame these hens, they do lay one egg a day till they lay ten, then they start sitting and incubating like big fat hens that they are. i salute these guys, they are the original feminists.

so, what now, bacteria? i can blame either the salmonellae (sounds like a hot italian chick), campylobacter (the original sophie ellis baxtor), staphylococcus aureus (adios stefan of coccus), bacillus cereus (very serious bacillus), escherichia coli (an eschewing russian bacterium), shigella (shita-verya-mucha-likea-gella), clostridium botulinum (kinda like the stuff people put in their freaking foreheads so they can never, ever, ever frown ever, ever, ever again, god forbid that ever, ever, ever happens so one looks eternally shiny and happy) and vibrio cholerae (she who vibrates).

going by the 9.9 richter movements on my tummy that's causing ripples over the hamidian south, i'd say the vibrating chick's got me, but it's usually transmitted by undercooked or raw seafood, and last i remember, chickens and eggs, in that order, are not SEAfood. i suspect it's the pickles. i won't run out of my bedroom stark naked now to check the expiry date on PRESERVED pickles. it could also be the pita wraps.

for fuck's sake, it could be a million things.

oh wait, parasites and toxic agents can also cause food poisoning.

great.

i am being eaten alive from inside out AND melted from outside in. my future can't be any brighter than the darkness this morning at 0247am.

nothing happened that thursday night i made my toxic egg pita. the egg didn't explode, my tefal pan did not corrode - or perhaps that's the real power of non-stick teflon. i spent the rest of the night beating myself up that i didn't bring my gym bag to work - it is NEVER a good idea to go home to GRAB your gym bag, cos all you do is grab an egg from the fridge, break it into a beautiful omelette over a pan and grab a toxic parasitic viral bacterium at the same time.

and then you attempt to be heroic the next day and go to work DESPITE the new vocal chords your stomach's seem to have grown overnight, making awumbaweh-awumbaweh-in the jungle-the mighty jungle sounds.

and then putting your newfound awumbaweh tiger tail between your legs and admitting to all in your department that it is true, you're looking like fuckin' hell cos you've been poisoned by the al qaeggda.

my tummy rumbles in tropical unison.

dr i-need-more-meat-on-my-bones-you-look-like-you-can-spare-me-more-than-some tells me to eat only cooked food. i guess i SHOULD have toasted my fuckin pickles. hell, while i'm at it, might as well put it on a pitchfork with a couple of marshmallows over a QuickLite fire so they can discuss how to fuck me up when they get inside me later on. no dairy products, no pasta, no spaghetti, no sauces, no fried foods, no, no, no.

i get home, open my fridge and see a carton of lactose-happy milk, reduced sugar soyabean MILK (which i am not allowed to drink either), frozen beef bolognaise sauce i pre-made, those goddamn eggs from hell, those unholy pickles, Ben & Jerry's pistachio ice-cream and other strange stuff in Tupperwares that i am sure even my unhygienic let's-sneeze-12-times-into-dali's-direction-without-a-tissue would not recommend.

i want to soak peanut butter jelly sandwiches in milk and suckle.

BUTTER + MILK = DOUBLE COW SHOT = DOUBLE SHITA-LIKEA-GELLA.

i stand in disbelief at my 10 year old fridge and wonder if the fridge is a ticking toxin timebomb and has infiltrated all my foods.

i pop an anti-nausea pill and pass out on my bed while reading an article on China with a picture of an obese baby as an insert. i get up and whine to myself for 30 seconds that i miss ravi, i miss him doing anything for me, going out to get food for me when i'm sick, drooling, dramatically dying. then i promptly call the dad who's outstationed, and the mom who immediately launches a nagegade. i call ravi and ask him rhetorically, "am i a monster?"

i take a shower, wonder WHY i am still nauseous. i gather all my courage, energy (it's 1730 and i have not eaten since the dangerous egg pita at 2030 the night before) and walk to the supermarket 300m away. i would be breathless and panic stricken 5 minutes later by the lack of my trusty inhaler. and EXTREMELY annoyed that that hot italian guy who's been checking me out the past year would see me without eye make-up, WITH my glasses, dragging my feet unglamorously across the cobblestoned path. it is too late to redeem myself with poise once i realise that 'tis he who hath been watching from a distance who hath emerged from the silver carriage.

once i reach home breathless and throw the soft vitamin-fortified (whatever that really means) bread on the bartop, i wait for someone to hand me a gold medal. alas, all that comes is the rumbling, the overwhelming nausea and cyclical 240-seconds need to gag. i shuffle to the room, strip, wash my hands and greedily rip the bread-tie off the raisin bread loaf. i gobble the first slice. i walk out to the kitchen and spread butter all over 2 more raisin bread slices and swallow these too. i drink 300ml of water and sit on the bed. then it hits me. raisins are mini prunes and butter comes from a freaking whipped up cow. i wince and slap my deserving forehead.

i am a blistering idiot.

i can't be any stupider, can i?

but nooooooo, i can. and i prove myself wrong the very next day. today. i have, again, 3 slices of raisin bread with BUTTER FROM A COW and down it with 300ml of UNTREATED water. then i meet a friend and have a Carl's Jr burger complete with UNCOOKED lettuce, UNCOOKED pickles, UNCOOKED tomatoes, UNCOOKED onions, UNCOOKED mayonnaise. on top of this, i decid, HEY! let's go to the gym!

and now, at 0316, (i am cursing, wondering why www.blogger.com hasn't worked for the 30 minutes since i first tried, but this happens in a high-tech world all the time) i am wondering how i can hide my present state of high all bloatedness and acne massacre from the in-laws-to-be tomorrow.

i have, at my last mirror count, 17 Retin-A spots on my face. this has nothing to do with my natural hamidian tendency to exaggerate or go forward with mass coverage, i HAVE 17 Retin-A spots because i HAVE 17 spots/acne/blemish/evil ugly things on my face. ravi's gonna call me sobbing tomorrow night cos his mother insists he not marry the world's ugliest spotted awumbaweh beast.

oh, the future shines so bright.