The Big Goodbye, explained

I rushed yesterday's entry because I didn't have a lot of time.  I think that the Big Goodbye needs to be explained in greater detail.  You're welcome to skip this entry if you want, but I think you'll find my experience more useful if you read it.

Now, for many years, going out to the Chinese buffet once a week has been a tradition of my hubby and I.  It meant spending time together, and being free to eat what we wanted.  For me, this meant a tall glass of sweet tea and about 3 plates of sampling almost everything in the buffet, including the desserts.  My last plate was all desserts.  For Hubby, this meant a couple glasses of diet Coke, large servings of wontons, rice, and chicken, averaging at about 3 plates, the last one usually being all white rice with soy sauce.  We did this once a week for YEARS...

Now, three weeks into this diet, we were really really missing our tradition, because it was a time when we stepped away from our computers and focused on each other.  We went to a steakhouse the week before, but we were so focused on ordering the right foods, that our thoughts were on what we couldn't eat, not on each other.  So, for one final time, we decided to go to the Chinese buffet.  We ordered water, but went to town on everything else.

I ate three different kinds of chicken, egg custard tarts, low mein, fried rice, cheese rangoons, watermelon, honeydew melon, Some small cakes, some cookies, and three different kinds of ice cream.  And a peanut cookie.  I was too focused on enjoying the taste of the food to even look at my hubby and see what he was eating.  I know, defeats the purpose, right?  But this was it, the last time we'd see the inside of a Chinese buffet in a very long time.  Every time I felt full, I'd take a few deep breaths, wait a little, then keep eating.  I stuffed myself silly.

After a sad goodbye to the restaurant's doors, we got in the car and left to run errands.  That is when I began to pay the price for my crimes against my diet.  Not 20 minutes after we left the buffet, my stomach turned and my guts growled.  Then came the sharp telltale pain in my intestines.  I rushed into a nearby frozen yogurt shop I was familiar with, running into their bathroom.  And there I stayed, for quite a while, while my internal organs punished me.  Normal food was no longer normal to me.  This strange diet is my new normal.  Lesson learned.