I just typed the title to this blog post and then let out a heavy sigh. I like to share positive experiences with you. This is not a positive experience. I guess there's a bright side to it - I finally learned my lesson. Yeah, okay, that's definitely a bright side. The lesson I learned here is one I've been struggling with for a long time, so I'm glad I finally got smacked upside the head with a little bit of sense. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you what this week's life lesson was.
Jon and I took the kids to Denver this past weekend to go car shopping. We had just gotten back from an unsuccessful car hunt in Phoenix the weekend before, so I wasn't thrilled about being away from home again so soon. Home is my comfort zone. I know I'll get my workouts done, and I have complete control over everything that goes into my food. I love home. But we needed a car, and Denver had a lot more options than anywhere in New Mexico, so off we went. (For those of you who don't already know this, we get free flights with Great Lakes Airlines because Jon works for them. We're not just throwing money around right and left on plane tickets.) We ended up buying our car there, so it was great that we went. I absolutely love our car!
Anyway, this shameful story is not about our car or even really about the time we spent in Denver. It's about my eating habits while we're away from home. I generally do all right with food while we're away, but the temptation to eat crap sometimes gets the better of me. I know I've talked about this before. I do my workouts in the hotel room, I eat healthy for the first day or two, and then I blow it on a piece of cake or some buffalo wings or something. Well, this time my downfall was Chipotle. Ok, that's not really a huge downfall if you're just looking at the calories. Chipotle is a burrito place, and they have an option to make the burrito in a bowl, without the tortilla. I figured, what the heck, I'll go with that. There's not a Chipotle where we live, and I used to love eating there before I was living my healthy lifestyle. Burrito bowl, that's gotta be healthy, right? I ordered it with black beans and rice, pork (could've had chicken, but I hate chicken), extra hot salsa, guacamole, and lettuce. No cheese, no sour cream. Not too terrible. It tasted pretty good, but it wasn't as amazing as I remembered it. It was definitely not worth the trouble it caused me later.
(It was kinda like this. Oh man, I can't even look at it right now.)
The morning after we had eaten Chipotle for dinner, we got up at 5:30 am to head to the airport. I was going to fly home with Calista, and Jon and Tori were going to road trip home in our new car. It was a great plan because Calista still needs to eat every few hours, and a drive with her would take a lot longer. We had to get up that early because Jon had to get home in time for work, and it's a good 7 hour drive home from Denver. I wish we could have taken a little more time to get ready, but we were in a rush to get to the airport in time for my flight. I felt my stomach rumbling from the previous night's dinner, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I got to spend a little time in the bathroom before we left the hotel, but apparently it wasn't enough.
When Calista and I got to the airport, we checked in at the ticket counter and then had to hurry through security. I was carrying her in the baby backpack on my front, and I had my backpack with her diapers and formula on my back. Security isn't too hard to get through that way because they let me wear Calista through the metal detector. Still, I had to take off my shoes and belt and do all the other stuff that they make you do to get to the other side. By the time I had my clothes back together, I was in a pretty big hurry to get to my gate. Great Lakes, being the tiny little airline that it is, is in the basement of the Denver International Airport. To get to the gate, I had to speed walk all the way to the end of the A concourse, take the escalator downstairs, and speed walk all the way to the end of the basement concourse. What I'm trying to say is that it's a long freaking walk, and I was doing it as fast as I could with about 30 lbs of baby/luggage strapped to me.
I'm in pretty good shape by now, but I was sweating and huffing and puffing by the time I got to my gate. I checked in and had time to make Calista a bottle for the plane ride before they started boarding us. I did not have time to use the bathroom. I didn't even really think about it because I was so busy getting to the gate and making Calista's food and everything. When we boarded and were sitting on the plane waiting to take off, though, I noticed my stomach rumbling again. It was an angry rumble. It was saying, "Hey. Hey there. What the hell did you do to me last night? I'm gonna get you for this. Yeah, be scared." And I was. I was very scared. Because guess what? Great Lakes planes don't have bathrooms.
That's right. No bathrooms. Not even the tiny little closet bathroom that you normally find on a plane. Great Lakes has only enough room for passengers and luggage. The plane I was on that day only had nineteen seats. None of them had a toilet hidden under them. So there I was, crammed into my seat with Calista on my lap, waiting for takeoff and thinking, "Oh my God, I'm gonna shit my pants."
The second thought that crossed my mind was "We haven't even taken off yet. This is bad. This is really, really bad." Then I decided I should try to stop thinking about it. Mind over matter and all that. I thought maybe if I could be distracted, I would find a way to tell my body to quit the drama and just hang in there for the hour and a half flight. Unfortunately, there's not much distraction available on a nineteen-seater plane with no music allowed and no scenery going by. We were just rolling slowly down the runway. I could have walked faster than the plane at that point.
I broke out in a hot sweat. My stomach was boiling. Calista was merrily eating her bottle, and I was trying to concentrate on that instead of the discomfort I was feeling. It wasn't distracting me at all. All of a sudden, I felt a terrifying pressure and I thought "Oh no you don't!". I gritted my teeth and slammed my butt closed. The pressure dissipated inside of me instead of exploding into my pants, but it was so forceful that I could feel the bubbles coming back up my intestines. I doubled over in pain, and slowly the feeling went away. "Ahhh," I thought, "that's better." It didn't stay away for long. We were finally in the air, but it hadn't even been ten minutes into the flight before I had another battle with my bowels. I won again, but it was a close call. This happened more times throughout the flight than I can even count. Each time, I was close to my breaking point. The fear that I would have to explain my soggy, smelly, saggy pants to someone as I was getting off the plane was the only thing that kept me hanging on for dear life. I don't think I even need to tell you how incredibly humiliating that would be.
At one point, Calista woke up from a nap and started grunting. I watched with growing jealousy as she took a huge dump into her diaper. Am I proud that I wished I had a diaper too? No, no I am not. I think at one point I had a passing thought that had something to do with me stuffing one of Calista's diapers into my pants. That's truly desperate and really pathetic, but there it is. I was in the midst of a battle that I was determined not to lose.
When they finally announced the descent into Farmington, I was so relieved I almost cried. I had to tell myself to stay vigilant because if I relaxed for even a second, all my hard work would be for nothing. The plane landed and I waited impatiently for the door to open. I tried not to run or shove people, but I'm pretty sure I did both on my way to the bathroom. I was in there for a long time, and when I came out again, I was triumphant. Mark this on your calendars: Wednesday, August 15th - the day I did not shit my pants. (Fine, you don't have to mark it. But if you want to, do it in red. And throw in a few exclamation points.)
Moral of the story: don't ever stop eating healthy, wonderful foods, even when you're away from home. Eating junk that you're not used to will really throw your body off, and you might end up fighting a war with your furious stomach like I did. I won this one, but I might not win next time, so I have to make sure there's
not a next time. I've been telling myself this for a long time, but I'm finally worn down to the point that I can actually follow my own advice. That was way too close for comfort.
