“Eat your vegetables,” they said. “Salad is good for you,” they said. These are the things I think about while sitting on the toilet. And over the past couple of days, I’ve had lots of time to think.

Last Sunday, Susan and I had lunch at one of our favorite local sushi spots. Instead of my normal sushi I decided to try a “poke bowl” which is kind of a “build your own bowl full of stuff” option. I picked rice for the base, spicy mayo for the sauce, and for my three proteins I picked tempura shrimp, chicken, and salmon. After digging in I discovered the chicken was ice cold, which I thought was odd but maybe was intentional, but the salmon was… you know the fat attached to raw chicken? It was like that. I told Susan that they may have added salmon eyeballs by mistake. After two or three bites of the salmon I began actively avoiding it.

A couple of hours later as I was curled up on the couch holding my stomach, I began questioning not only that decision but life in general. “At least you haven’t had Taco Bell in the past week or two,” Susan assured me, and then I remembered I had. The weekend before last while in West Virginia, I had lunch at Taco Bell. Two soft taco supremes, with lots of lettuce. West Virginia is one of the five states experts suspect the “lettuce parasite” outbreak began, and they say it can take 1-2 weeks for symptoms to appear. It had been exacly 9 days.

Perhaps this is a first world problem but I had two different potential places that were attacking my gut. America is full of choices.

I spent most of Monday eating nothing at all and most of Tuesday quickly getting rid of anything I ate. On Wednesday, the day I meet my work pals for lunch, I had tortilla soup which later gurgled and complained as it sat in my stomach, but stayed down.

By Thursday I was feeling better and for dinner we had pizza. I’m still not sure if I had a bad case of food poisoning, a short visit from Taco Bell parasites, or a randomly timed stomach bug. Regardless of which one it was, I’m glad it seems to have moved on.