Nocturnal Eructations

More "Oh, Woe Is Me!" Stuff

As I get older, there's a few things you just have to take as a matter of course.

F'rinstance, the greying hair & beard.  The slow emergence of "laugh lines" around the eyes and the general saggification of the epidermis overall.  Getting up to pee more than once in the night.

The eyesight starts to decline, the symphony of creaks & pops from flexed joints goes from pianissimo to triple forte, and, of course, there's the continued decline of the digestive system.  I miss the days I could devour half a BBQ'd dead cow and a cauldron of SpoonMelter chili, and suffer not a whit the next day.  Now, I ought to own controlling shares of Maalox.

The latest item on the "You're an old fogey" list, though, is a puzzler.

Most nights, between O' Dark:Thirty and Dawn's Early Light, there's at least one episode that finds me suddenly sitting upright and belching like a spasmodic walrus.  Big ol' breezy gut bubbles, surfacing from the depths of perdition.

Other times, it'll hit on a bathroom trip, and the echoing of the belch on the tile walls will knock the cobwebs from your eyes...

That bit about it tasting better the second time around?  Not after hours of digestion.

I suppose it could be worse.  The big air bubble could stick around, and choose to exit from another orifice under less private circumstances.

I suppose there's some modicum of grace left to us, after all...