Immediately after dinner last night, M's lip began to swell. Not a lot... just a little... but enough for him to wonder "Hmmm... where's this gonna go? Wonder if I'll be able to go into work tomorrow...?"

(I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but M has a severe allergy to MSG. Even a tiny amount of the stuff will make bits of him look like the Elephant Man. Swellings often occur on his legs or a hip or a wrist, but sometimes his face will puff up to odd proportions. It took him months to finally figure out what was doing this to him, so now he's super careful about what he eats.)

But the odd thing is that nothing I cooked last night could've possibly had MSG in it. Salmon? Nope, totally MSG free. Potatoes? Nothing in there. Snijbonen? (I think we call 'em pole beans) Heck, it's a veggie... no MSG there either.

We shrugged it off as some freak occurence of "the swellings" and went to bed.

At 4am, I'm suddenly awake and I promptly hear M whisper "Ang, are you awake?' But really it sounded more like "Amf, arf oo athake? I haf a bigth sthellingf."

But before I could really process this info, my stomach cramped. Badly. As in "Oh god, I gotta get outta bed or I'm gonna yuke all over my new boyfriend." I ran to the bathroom, bowed down the to the porcelain god, tried to push away my immediate thought of "ewwwww, i really need to clean this thing" and heaved.

And... well... nothing. (Okay, a little, but do you really want all the details of my puking? No, I didn't think so.)

I crawled back to bed and my stomach started cramping again. M tried to be nice and rub my belly for me, but the pain was so awful, I couldn't stand to be touched. I just laid there rocking back and forth, trying to comfort myself through each wave of cramps and thought "What the hell did we eat? Do I have food poisoning?" I finally fell asleep after another unproductive sprint to the bathroom.

This morning I woke up next to The Missing Link.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have discovered that missing humanoid that irrefutably links us to the monkeys! He is Dutch, has a taste for nice clothes and I live with him! Do not be afraid children! He is gentle and tame and I keep him on a very short leash! Feel free to pet my monkey... er... human... er... monkey....

After searching the internet (no, M didn't go to work today... but I've already made 50 Euros displaying him to the neighbors...), we figured out what happened.

My cooking POISONED us.

(Right now, my mother is laughing and laughing and laughing... go ahead Mom, yuck it up... get a good chuckle outta this one... put it down on that list you keep... the one entitled "Things to Torture my Daughter With")

Did you know you gotta cook pole beans real REAL good so that they aren't... ahem... poisonous to humans?

"Before they are eaten, the raw bean seeds should be boiled for at least ten minutes to degrade a toxic compound - the lectin phytohaemagglutinin - found in the bean which would otherwise cause severe gastric upset."

Severe gastric upset. Um, whoopseeeeeee.

Now, we couldn't figure out a link between my poisonous cooking -- I hereby dub myself The Death Chef! -- and M's allergy to MSG, but we can't think of any other reason for the disaster that now is his face.

And since he's such a good sport, he's decided that I can share that disaster with all of you. This is M at approximately 9am this morning.