1. The thought of eating ethnic food you’ve never tried before makes you break out in a cold sweat. Actually the thought of eating anything new makes you break out in a cold sweat.
2. You’ve lost track of how many times you’ve had to employ the courtesy flush more than once in a sitting. See #1
3. You will eat the same thing every day for a month with no complaints, because your IBS isn’t acting up and you don’t dare rock the boat. See #2
4. Going from trim to muffin-top back to trim over the course of an afternoon isn’t disconcerting, it’s just a day of the week that ends in Y.
5. You’ve come to accept that a bad IBS day during allergy season means that you’re staying within 10 yards of a restroom. At. All. Times.
6. Conversations about poop don’t strike you as odd. In fact you find it a little bit odd when you realize that some of your friends don’t talk about poop at all, and you have a special bonding moment when your new-mother friends realize that they have someone to talk about poop with.
7. You are familiar with every homeopathic and OTC “tummy fix” and are secretly, or sometimes openly, annoyed when someone offers you one that isn’t your preferred brand.
8. You know that if you ever get appendicitis you’ll probably die because you won’t realize that that pain isn’t your normal pain/cramps/malaise until too late.
9. You play the “Is it worth it?” game with at least one dish at every buffet, BBQ and party you go to. Sometimes it’s totally worth it, other times you rue the day you were born.
10. You’ve perfected the art of farting in public . . . because it happens . . . a lot.
