Afro Sausage

I have been in Africa for less than 24 hours. I think I have food poisoning. Maybe. Guilty party: sausage. I am sure I have had food poisoning several times in the past. Often the blame falls on the “stomach flu” when, in fact, it is food poisoning. I am certain that I have had it twice in my life. Both times from sausage. One I deserved. The other a shocker. I ate a 7-11 sausage coming home from a pub around three a.m. Justified. Score: Sausage 1 - Matt 0. Uncontrollable projectile vomiting. Montezuma’s revenge. Ass on the toilet, head over the bathtub. My stomach wrung out like a wet beach towel. Cold sweats. Clammy hands. And pain. Lots of pain. The second time was from an undercooked kielbasa. At least I think it was undercooked. It could well have been an opossum that lost its footing and wound up in the grinder. It didn’t do me in as bad as the 7-11 disaster but it wasn’t the least bit pleasant I can assure you.

I am scared of the African sausage. It is mysterioso. A faceless and unexplored enemy which is well capable of runaway destruction by means of biological warfare. Right now, it is kneading my stomach over like a baker kneads dough. It is hard to describe the sausage. At least I am having a certain degree of difficulty putting the words together. Maybe part of me doesn’t want to meditate on it. The brain systematically shutting down and desperately trying to entomb the whole experience somewhere deep in the cerebrum. Perhaps the same file sector where I store algebraic formulas and ex-girlfriend’s birthdays. It had the dimensions of the typical hot Italian sausage but the color of a ballpark hotdog. The consistency was also similar to a hotdog but it was a bit looser and grittier. The casing very loose and pale and looking like the dead skin that you precisely peel off a sunburn in order to get in largest possible patch. I couldn’t tell you whether it was pork, beef, chicken, or a combination thereof. It could damn well be the offal of bushbaby or rat for all I know or care to know. It is terrifying. It is ugly. It is real. And it is festering inside me. There is a fight going on here. A no-holds-barred fight with unlimited rounds and no referee. The sausage, the prize-fighter, is incensed. Pacing to and fro in it’s sausage corner waiting for the bell to ring so it can channel it’s rage and unleash devastation and wreckage on it’s opponent - my stomach. My asshole is acting as coach. Giving direction to my stomach and hoping, if not praying, for the improbable victory. Indeed this will be a fight. And the proverbial towel will only be thrown in should the coach become involved and also suffer defeat at the hands of this mighty chub. What I really need is an ice-cold Lowenbrau to remedy this situation. With ice crystals starting to form in the bottle. Surely the sausage would forgive my transgressions if I bathed her in beer. But there is no beer here. So I shall try to douse the flames with a burly glass of Tanzanian tap water instead. At least I will have liquid to throw up rather than dry-heaving. It would probably be advantageous to dissolve a few Altoids into it as well. That way I will have the benefit of “curiously strong” minty breath rather than sausage and peppers once my fighters are down and I am talking to Ralph on the big white phone.