Two week-ends in a row Der Bingle and I have made chili on Saturday morning and he has handed me the parts of the sliced tomatoes that don’t go in the mixture. I eat them because I love tomatoes. Last week I bought regular on the vine tomatoes because I forgot his instructions to get romas. So yesterday I made certain I had the roma ones.

Okay . . . This morning as he was slicing and dicing and I was walking around the kitchen collecting spoons, washing pans and putting the chopper together, he would, as usual, slip a bit of tomato into my mouth. Everything proceeded as usual; just like last Saturday . . . until a couple of hours later when I had the dreaded intestinal cramps, followed by mock dysentery. Sorry if I’m getting dramatic here but it didn’t feel good.

I think it was the roma tomatoes; I think they are for cooking, not raw eating. At least as far as my body is concerned. Maybe I am wrong . . . as my daughter-in-law said, “Oh, you and your gut.”

I stopped talking about romas then because my intuition told me unless I quickly changed the subject, that line would become on of my definitions. You know, kids saying, “You’ve got Grandma’s gut.” Or, let’s go to a different restaurant; you know Grandma’s gut.” Heck, it could become a syndrome: Grandma’s Gut.

I don’t know, maybe it’s better than having “the vapors”, but come to think of it (and I wish I hadn’t) it might actually have some resulting vapors of its own.

What did they say yesterday? Oh, yeah, I remember. SHUT UP AMELIAJAKE.