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Tummy Trouble and Complaining

Stomach Blues

David Conte
3 min readMay 17, 2023
Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com

Maybe I pulled an abdominal muscle while walking up the mountains of stairs in Paris. The baguettes I inhaled by the minute may have been a contributing factor, which reminded me of the French baguettes I saw scattered in an empty water fountain.

How sad, I thought. Is this the best they can do?

In America, you’d have seen half of a concrete wall blown off, likely from a stick of dynamite, or monstrous tire truck marks embedded in the ground. These are the more preferred methods of vandalism.

But I guess the French do things differently (though it could have been the work of a few tourists).

Anyway, I’m not exactly sure who or what was the culprit, but what I do know is that having an aggravating, week-long stomach issue is a complete downer.

I’d made it into work during the week but was laid up like a hostage in my apartment over the weekend.

There were missed social opportunities, too. My chance to slide right into a Frankfurt nightclub passed: I whined on the phone about my bad tummy and had no choice but to decline an invite to go out with my new expat friend, who was suddenly jumping ship.

For his last weekend in the city, he and some others partied like it was 1929. I, on the other hand…

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David Conte
David Conte

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