Imodium, Like Alcohol, Makes You Think You’re Invincible

On Friday night I awoke to my partner leaving the bed for the bathroom. More than once. It seemed like every ten minutes. It was probably only every thirty. All. Night. Long.

And once I was awake, I realized why, and that I was about to share his misery. In the colorful words of my son when he was a child, we were “peeing out of our butts.” Very sexy and romantic.

We had picked up prepared food from a specialty local market. Basic food, as in meat loaf and vegetable fried rice.

Yes, I know. I left him unattended in the grocery store, and the fried rice was his idea of a “vegetable.”

. . .

You know how wine, or any other alcohol makes you feel invincible? It impairs your judgment when it comes to lots of things, including food. When inebriated you can eat anything, and often do, with no consequences.

You can order the greasiest fast food after drinking and your body will simply take it in, use it to balance out the alcohol, and be grateful to you for helping it avoid some of the worst of the inevitable hangover. If you also drink lots of liquid that isn’t alcoholic along with the fast food, even better. Water and fizzy soft drinks come to mind.

There’s one other substance that also makes you feel invincible when it comes to food. Imodium.

However, that part of the story emerges later. After everything else finished emerging. Or so I thought.

. . .

We were on a romantic trip to meet halfway between his town of residence and mine in Austin. My hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, happens to be halfway.

We were staying in an Airbnb as a cozy getaway from our separate homes. I wanted to show him the sights and sites of where I lived the majority of my life. I had a list of places to eat that were my faves and go-tos. One was Mama’s Pizza, which I get Every. Single. Visit. No matter what else happens, I eat Mama’s Pizza and bring some back to Austin because they won’t deliver over 200 miles away.

It’s the holidays and glittering lights, sugar plums, and chicken and mushroom pizza were tap dancing in my head. So many fun places to see, my favorite restaurants, and sweet love-making in our romantic, industrial modern apartment decorated in vibrant red and black.

As with most well laid plans, things soon gang aft astray.

We certainly started out happily. The high, platform red and black queen bed provided just the right setting for romantic, mind blowing, sex. We spent our first evening in, after a quick drive through one of the historic neighborhoods.

The next evening we had reservations with my best friend and her newish boyfriend at Del Frisco Grill in downtown, where we shared the best $52 steak money can buy. Hey, Fort Worth is Cow Town, expensive, exquisite steaks are a requisite. It was paired with truffled mac and cheese. Fort Worth is also southern, yet bourgeois. Some good truffles gave their lives for that meal.

Fort Worth, unlike most downtowns, is vibrant and alive. The local wealthy moguls and patrons, the Bass Brothers, fulfilled their dream for which they broke ground in the 1980s, of making downtown Fort Worth a destination for locals and tourists.

With its red brick streets, cattle stampede mural about to thunder right out of the painting, a mix of art deco, modern, and western architecture, and the splendiferous Bass Performance Hall, complete with massive, towering angels playing gold trumpets over the entrances, downtown Fort Worth became a Mecca.

Even more reason to show it off to my lover is that I helped in the marketing of this grand scheme from its inception. There’s a monument downtown with Fort Worth’s past, “present” and future that I wrote.

Sundance Square, the glittering jewel dissecting Main Street in the middle of downtown has a performance stage fronting an historic building. The building next to it has the mural of cattle appearing as if they will soon gallop past you in full fury.

Del Frisco Grill overlooks Sundance Square, which contains several large sculptures that look like upended umbrellas. They are lit with lights that change colors in a pattern, and directly in front of them and the stage is a section of fountains built into the cement. They, too, light up with various colors as the fountains spout in rhythm.

When we arrived, the huge tree was lit up in between the sculptures and fountain, and while it is beautiful, none of the other lighting was activated. The “winter wonderland” in temperatures in the 70s was not shining its beckoning lighting. My boyfriend was not impressed.

Which is unfortunate, as it is the last site we visited before poopageddon set in.

We never made it to see the Stockyards, the world class museums, or even the humble monument with my words inscribed. Since he was being attacked by Fort Worth pollen, we stayed in Friday.

There was an initial plan for Friday night to have pizza with my sister, “the funny one.” Mama’s Pizza, of course, the best pizza in the world, and I’ve eaten pizza in New York and Italy.

Fort Worth pollen put the kibosh on that plan, and we stayed in and heated up the aforementioned foolish combo choice of meat loaf and vegetable fried rice. I will never be able to look fried rice in the face again, if it has a face. If it did have one it would be evil.

After the following long night of bathroom relay, we spent Saturday not eating, sipping water and sprite, and generally being miserable. Again, very sexy and romantic. We binged comedy specials. As we all know, humor is the cure for everything.

Except apparently, food poisoning. So my friend Judy brought soup, crackers, and the usual, including Imodium, which we took that evening. The night was a fairly quiet one with only occasional tag teaming to the bathroom instead of a gazillion. Still not romantic or sexy, but more restful.

The next day I took more Imodium. My boyfriend dropped me off at my sister’s house. You know, “the funny one.” Then he left to drive back to his town.

The Imodium started whispering to me, “I’ve got you. You’re fine. Go ahead and eat.” My sister and I went to breakfast where I had avocado toast and sipped half a cup of coffee. So far so good.

There were no more water works the rest of the day, so that evening we ordered the fabled Mama’s Pizza, along with Italian dressing for dipping the pizza. Imodium assured me I could handle anything at this point. “Eat the pizza,” it said, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

And since you can’t have pizza without wine or beer, I sipped some wine. Later my sister brought out the chocolate toffee, and I had one square with a few more sips of wine, because, hey, wine and chocolate are almost as good as sex which has not been interrupted by effluvial peeing out of your butt.

Until the morning. My sister left for work, and her doggo whined outside the bathroom door where I took up residence. The Imodium had been a trick. A stopgap as it were. Like most mind and body altering substances, Imodium lies.

Like an addict, though, I popped two more, because I had a four hour train ride home. Have you tried to hurry down the aisle of a train to the bathroom? It’s not only not pretty, it’s not possible, and the result of not making it wouldn’t be pretty either.

Imodium is like sticking your finger in a dam. Don’t stick your actual finger in this particular dam, but you get the metaphor. The finger, Imodium, holds back the rush of water from the leaking dam temporarily, but it’s a false calm before the raging storm. Do not believe its lies. And most of all, do NOT eat pizza while under the influence of Imodium. I guarantee you will regret it.

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This post was previously published on MuddyUm.

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