While many students get easily annoyed by Sunday-night phone calls from parents, or the weekend-long family visits, I embrace these visits—even if it's only my friends' and roommates' parents. It might be a selfish reason, but when parents visit, you get free dinner. And not just Taco John's dinner, but someplace you can't walk to.
My hometown neighbors were like second parents to me growing up. Whenever they would visit Madison; they would take their son and daughter and about 10 of their friends to dinner somewhere special. Since this was the first time in my life that I truly had to pay my own bills, I snatched each and every dinner opportunity without hesitation.
When I got the call from Corey that his parents were taking us out to dinner at a Thai restaurant, I was pretty excited. Bob and Cheryl loved meeting my girlfriends, so I asked Corey if it'd be cool if I brought Nikki along.
Now, Nikki and I had only hung out twice before this, but we were hitting it off. Taking her out for dinner would have scored big points, or so I thought.
Sa Bai Thong was a really nice place, but as I recall the menu was a mile long. I flipped to the chicken section and picked something with one chili pepper on the five-pepper spice meter. I figured one pepper was a safe bet, ya know? A few people even got meals with two or three peppers. The food arrived and it was absolutely delicious. I was full of thai goodness with a lady by my side.
On the ride home, however, I was startled when my stomach made that gurgling noise—not the good kind like when you're starving, but the scary kind in your intestines like when you're afraid if you pass gas you might have to change your shorts.
Well, the date was going well up until that point, and Corey dropped us off at my house. I showed Nikki where my room was and stepped in to use the bathroom. I sat down and, YEP, diarrhea. Not that diarrhea is ever an enjoyable experience, but apparently Thai food-induced diarrhea BURNS. Even with Charmin Ultra, the most cloud-like of toilet paper, I was definitely hurting.
While fiery expulsions shot out of me, I recalled why I picked the bedroom next to the bathroom: I could easily jump in the shower before my roommates each morning. What I never thought about was the possibility of being on a third date with a beautiful woman, and having only six inches of 60-year-old wall between me and her when explosive, burning Thai-food diarrhea hits me like a ton of bricks.
I'm sure she noticed something was up when the toilet next door flushed a minute before I came back to the room each time, but I wasn't about to share my horrifically embarrassing story with her. Ironically, I'm now sharing it with 10,000 plus strangers.
Though free dinners from parents should never be turned down, remember my experience and think twice when you jeopardize a new relationship eating at an unknown restaurant.
This story is 10 times funnier in person. E-mail Jon at jwsteffen@wisc.edu for the more graphic version.
