Gas Giant

I love Fat Tuesday.

I do not love it because of Mardi Gras. I do not love it because Lent is about to begin. I love Fat Tuesday because of the food.

To me, an overweight, emotional eater, a day in which you are supposed to eat a whole bunch of stuff is my favorite kind of holiday. And I don’t just eat pancakes that day or get a donut for breakfast when I normally would not do so. I plan. I go shopping. I spend days ahead of time thinking about all the tasty treats I get to enjoy unapologetically on Fat Tuesday.

For many reasons, I know this is bad. It’s bad for my health. It’s bad for my wallet, since I buy a bunch of junk food for the occasion. And it is probably disrespectful to the Lenten season which follows in one way or another.

So sorry, but not sorry. Given any excuse, eaters gonna eat.

This year was no different. A few days before the blessed day, I took a trip to Shop Rite. I had a mental list which included both sweet and savory items; while a lot of Fat Tuesday traditions involve sugar, I feel it is important to cover both areas in depth. So while I did purchase a slice of carrot cake and a few cupcakes (yes, both, don’t judge me), I also took a trip to the canned goods and picked up some SpaghettiO’s (a favorite comfort food reminiscent of childhood for me). I like to doctor them up with parmesan cheese and a few dashes of hot sauce and woo! Let me tell you, that is delicious. Nutrition be damned. Finally, I planned to get a burger as my main meal for the day.

So I was ready. Monday night I went to bed salivating in anticipation of the great celebration of Fat Tuesday.

Then the worst happened. I woke up Tuesday morning with a huge air bubble in my stomach.

(Note: this is not actually the worst thing that could possibly have happened. Nobody died or was harmed in any way. But the drama is important to the story.)

I don’t just mean a little air bubble that goes away with some ginger ale and a couple good farts. This thing was massive and I knew from the moment I woke up that it would be an all day affair.

Every now and then, about twice a year I would say, I get these massive air bubbles in my digestive system. I have yet to figure out where they come from, but they are always the same. They develop overnight so I wake up with them. It feels like a giant bubble slowly expanding my insides as it travels around from my stomach to my intestines. It is very painful when it moves around and it usually lands and sets up shop somewhere in the lower right hand side of my guts (but I know it’s not my appendix because of how it moves around). For about 10 to 12 hours I walk around feeling like a gas giant; at those times I imagine myself to be Jupiter because I feel large, round with gas, and there’s a big storm happening in the middle.

When this happens I drink as many bubbly fluids as I can to try to get the gas out. I also drink strong coffee in an effort to make some gastrointestinal action occur. I move around, painful though it is, to try to encourage the bubbles to move around on the inside. I take GasX. But mostly I just have to wait it out. Eventually, through some good belches and flatulence, it dissipates, and I am left to live in fear of the next gas giant day coming my way.

So there I was on Tuesday with all of these plans to eat and absolutely no appetite. No more Fat Tuesday, only Sad Tuesday. Perhaps the timing was a message from beyond: “Don’t eat all that stuff…it’s a really bad idea. Eat a vegetable.” Perhaps it was simply the result of having slightly too many beans in my quesadilla the night prior. Either way, I was bummed.

By later in the evening enough gas had left the premises and I was still able to eat my slice of cake, which I massively enjoyed. The cupcakes didn’t go to waste and the SpaghettiO’s are still in the kitchen. I will keep them for a day when I don’t feel well, don’t feel like cooking, or need a little comfort. So all was not lost and in the end I was probably better off for not eating all of that stuff in one day.

But come next year you can bet that I will be planning a similar celebration. Fat (and sassy) Tuesday forever!