Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Lesson(s) Learned: Food Poisoning

Food poisoning sucks! Anyone who's had it will tell you. It's like a really bad flu except, instead of being able to get all comfortable in your soft, snuggly bed, you spend half the time in your cold, hard bathroom. Not nice...


The Story

So my friend Dominica, who i've known since 4th grade and haven't seen in about 6 months, came down to SD for the weekend to visit and brought her friend Christina, who had never been. We had a kickback on Friday night and Dominica, not surprisingly got us (me and my girlfriend) up the next morning to go do something. We thought about the beach but then figured that we should show Christina what TJ was like (so now you know where this is heading). We went and parked by the border, walked across, and got to TJ around 5:00.



We were all hungry and we stopped at a taco shop that we had been to many times before, cuz they got tacos 3 for $1. Christina is a vegetarian so she splurged for the $1 fish tacos. After the taco shop, we walked up and down Revolucion and stopped at a couple bars to have some drinks and dance before deciding to head home at about 9:30.

Sunday was a nice, relaxing day.

Woke up Monday and felt a little weird, then it really started to hit me after lunch.

Missed work Tuesday and when i called my girlfriend, she was sick too. My girlfriend calls Dominica and, sure enough, sick too. Christina's vegetarianism and willingness to splurge on $1 fish tacos saved her from the same fate.


Lesson(s) Learned

So i'm hesitant to tell people how i got the food poisoning because people's perceptions of Mexico bug the hell outta me, and this almost adds more fuel to their argument. A lot of people i know refuse to eat food, especially tacos, in Mexico, and i resent the fact that people are so quick to believe rumors about how bad the food is. My resentment causes me to be foolishly bold when eating down there and i am not too prideful to admit that. The fact is that the food down there, although very safe the majority of the time, is not as safe as the food in the states (which is not 100% safe either) because of poverty and other circumstances. This brings me to my first lesson learned:

The Practical Lesson: Be careful about food that is not cooked before your eyes.

Ok, so this one definitely pertains primarily to corner joints, especially in 3rd world countries, but it's still something to think about for any restaurant, regardless of the fact that the overwhelming majority of food we eat out is not cooked in front of us. We've all heard horror stories of what they can do to your food purposely, let alone what can happen due to human error or unsafe or unsanitary practices or conditions.




The More Important Lesson: Don't let fear determine the way you live your life.


It's ridiculous to let fears, other people's horror stories, or even bad past experiences scare us away from the things that make life great. If you're smart, the majority of the time, what you are able to experience will be worth the minute risk of something bad happening. Yeah, i had this one horrifying experience with food poisoning,which i hope i never experience again, but it would be foolish of me to stop eating tacos in Mexico. It would honestly take hours to try to figure out how many times i've eaten tacos in Mexico, and the joy those numerous tacos have given me is basically immeasurable. So i'll take that any day. And if you wanna look at it in probabilistic terms, then the risk is definitely worth the reward.

Be smart but don't be ruled by fear.

1 comment:

Aaron said...

those tacos are heaven. Those moments in life, when your palette is pampered with real fresh mexican food, are the moments which make life splendid.