When Chinese food attacks! (This counts as a Pilate's workout.)

This blog contains graphic depictions of bodily functions as they can only happen to me.  

You've been warned.


Good afternoon!

So Hubby headed out to see his folks this weekend.  Skippy had to work pretty much all weekend, and Peaches is having one last fun weekend with her friends before most of them go back to school out of town.

In short, I pretty much have a three day weekend with no one around.

Ahhhhhhh.

I should be writing.  I should be stringing words together like a mad woman.  But, of course, I'm not.  Instead, last night, I thought it would be a great idea to top off a day of basically crappy food with some take out Chinese food.  Peaches and I love Chinese food, so we order it whenever we can.  Last night I go sesame chicken. Not a dish I order often, because it's sort of pricey, but hey, I knew I would have leftovers, so really I was ordering enough food for a couple meals.

Anyway, after eating dinner, I was feeling a little...bloated.  Fluffy girls know this feeling.  It's that feeling you

get when you've been even more bad on your body than normal and you just really need to do something healthy.  So between binge watching episodes of "Parks and Recreation" I told Peaches to fold a load of laundry and I was going to walk around the block.

We don't live on a perfectly square block, so going around the block is actually a pretty decent walk, especially if you go right out of our driveway instead of left, because then everything is slightly uphill.  Feeling really like I needed to sweat out some of the fatty food I'd eaten, I went right.

I got to the end of the block and felt worse.  (Mostly because I was sweating and breathing heavy...I'm that fluffy.)  But something stirred in my gut.

I ignored the feeling because I was determined to do this walk and turning around was NOT an option.  But by the time I reached the end of the next block I realized the stirring in my gut was the first rumblings of an intestinal attack, the kind of complete clearance attack that is on a very short timer and will not be denied. 

At this point, I was pretty much halfway around the block, except I wasn't.  Turning around would be the shorter, and smarter walk, because continuing around the block meant at least double the distance.  But standing on the corner, trying to measure the amount of time I had before complete internal combustion, I just knew, I KNEW I had enough time.  Besides, I reasoned, if things really got bad, I could always cut through our backyard neighbor's yard, and get to our house.

So I turned the corner and started walking.  Another hundred feet and I realized that I'd sorely misjudged the amount of time I had before detonation.  But by this time I was at a point at the walk where that back yard short cut was closer than turning around and going back the other way.

The thing about battling a time release explosion like this is that you can't move quickly.  Running is RIGHT OUT....why?  Because so many of the lower body muscles are busy contracting to hold back the floodgates.  Short steps is about all anyone in this state can manage, short slow steps because anything as jarring as a quick pace will jolt loose the iron grip the rump muscles have on the internal muscles.  Those of you who have been in this position know exactly that I mean. 

So I traversed the next five hundred feet with slow, careful steps.  At this point I was sweating, but not from movement so much as from the tension I had to keep on every muscle in my body between my armpits and my knees.    I counted every step out loud.  (Counting steps tends to calm me and take my mind off the ache in my feet or knees.)  

There I am, walking stiffly, counting out loud, sweating.  Thank goodness I live in the suburbs where everyone is inside playing video games or binge watching Netflix.  There was not one single person outside.  I finally reached my back yard neighbor's driveway.  I was sixty feet from my own private bathroom.  (I should remind readers at this point that, yes, I probably could have knocked on some one's door...but as you all know I have issues about using other people's bathrooms.  Admitting to a complete stranger that I was in dire need of their bathroom...and also knowing they'd be unable to ignore the kind of Armageddon I knew I would produce once near a toilet, well, that was right out.)

I took a step onto the driveway and stopped.  That's when I remembered that these are the people who struck a deal with Hubby to grind out some stumps on the lot line and then split the cost, our portion being $200.  The day the stumps were ground out, neighbor dude handed Hubby a bill for $1000.  Hubby asked for a receipt.  We haven't spoken since.  In fact, this past spring, they put up a lovely privacy fence between our yards.  Not AROUND their yard...just between our yards.

Yeah, I didn't feel right about cutting through their yard, around their fence, no matter how urgent things were getting in my gut, which had moved into some sort of red zone churning furnace about to blow.

Nope, I was going to risk going the long way.  That involved basically going around another complete city block.  (I was really at the halfway point, and would have kicked myself for not turning back sooner except that particular motion would have released the floodgates.)

At the far end of the block I ran into people, adults, children, all who stared at me.  Oh yeah, I was some kind of sexy beast, sweaty, baby stepping, counting out loud, gritting my teeth, doing everything in my power to NOT create any motion near the middle part of my anatomy.  Finally I turned the last corner.  Six houses to my front door.  Head down, I moved as quickly as I dared, doing some horrible countdown at the edge of every yard.  (Six houses!  Five houses!  Four houses!)

The good news was that the front door was unlocked. Peaches finished her task and was patiently waiting for me to start up another episode of "Parks and Rec."  I said nothing to her, I couldn't.  Everything inside me was quickly turning to a hot semi liquid and I wasn't going to risk even a quick greeting because I simply did not have the muscle control to say, "Hello" and hold the hot lava brewing inside.

You'll be relieved, (I sure was) to know I made it.  Barely, but I made it and was able to expel the toxic Chinese food in an appropriate receptacle.  Better yet, I get to count this as a solid Pilate's workout.

Still, this experience simply reinforces my thought that going outside does no one any good.

Wait, what?  Give up Chinese food?  That's the lesson I'm supposed to learn?

Please. No. The lesson we learn here is that nothing good comes from going outside.