…Or because of them. Mussels. I always liked them. These tasty little seafood treats, freshly steamed and dipped in melted garlic butter, washed down with an ice cold beer….mmm-mm! That was then. This is now. I've developed an increasing intolerance for these yummy little water filters. I discovered one morning several years ago after I had eaten some that I wasn't feeling very well. I decided that maybe it had something to do with the number of ice cold beer I used to wash the scrumptious mollusks down with. So… the next time I had mussels, I only had a couple of brown bottled barley beverages in an attempt to narrow down the cause of my ill feelings. But, yet again, I felt a little "off" the next day. Insistent and persistent, I needed to assure myself that I wasn't judging the yummy clams too harshly, I attempted another batch a while later and teetotaled completely. Nope… no luck… sick again, the next day. So, I resolved myself. No longer would I partake in the ritual of stripping, dipping and lipping these clamshell delights. Occasionally I would attend a social event, a party, a barbecue, where others would binge on these bivalves while I sat in the corner nibbling on potato chips averting my eyes from the gluttonous affray before me. Occasionally, I would attempt one little treat. I wouldn't suffer, yet I wouldn't dare push my luck… until yesterday. I was at an off-site meeting for work at a local seafood restaurant. We rented a room off to the side of the restaurant and ordered lunch from the menu. I ordered some sort of Cajun seafood pasta dish… angel hair pasta with scallops, clams, lobster, shrimp etc mixed in with a kind of Louisiana spiced white sauce. Mmmm-mm. Couldn't wait. When the meals came in, the dish was garnished with, you guessed it, mussels. There were four or five mussels on the rim of my plate. It had been years since I tasted one. I thought… there's only a few here, what harm could they do? I'll risk a little discomfort tomorrow and partake in this culinary pleasure today. I'll chance the seafood hangover. I gobbled it all up, lickety split. That was one o'clock. By two-thirty, I started feeling a little wooozy. Snacks came out at three… cookies and coffee. I was feeling worse now, but I had a couple of cookies and a cup of coffee anyway. I can often ease nausea (when caused by the brown bottle flu) with something for my stomach to do… carbs and sweets are most effective. Yet, I continued to feel awful… worse as each minute passed. I found myself sprinting for the mens room, crashing into a stall, and literally tossing my cookies. After four more visits to the same stall, driving the porcelain bus, saying hi to Ralph on the big white phone, doing the technicolor yawn, offering oral sacrifice to the porcelain flush gods… I decided to call it a day and left the meetings early. I went home and laid on the couch for the rest of the evening, successfully attempting keep toast down at around 8:30 or so. Speaking of toast. Mussels are toast for me now. I'll never knowingly try them again.