Debbie made gobs of Chex party mix last week. It is a yearly tradition for her, the onset of the season where we need to dig out our pants with the elasticized waistbands. She adds mixed nuts to the array, and as I passed through the kitchen, I saw on the counter top a nut unlike any that I've ever seen before. It was, quite simply, huge. I consider myself pretty worldly on the subject of nuts, but that pertains mainly to my family. My aunt even signs her greeting cards with "Love, Anut Debbie". The edible kind? I'm still learning.

I was a bit chipmunky as I grabbed for it, the nut, and stowed it inside my mouth, in my left cheek to be precise, and scurried away to a private place to consume my find.

It was delicious...so soft and moist, and I knew the fat content had to be through the roof. I'll preface where this is eventually heading by saying that when you suffer from IBS, f-a-t becomes a four-letter word. It's like magic, divine intervention, science, or a typo...I haven't decided which, but a fourth letter does somehow emerge.

I quickly found my mother after ingesting the thing, and told her of my tail...erm...tale. "Describe it again, Laur!" she cheered after the third retelling of this marvelous nut. We sat idling in the garage as her jaw grew slack and her eyes danced with pinpoints of fairy dust. She surmised that it was a Brazil nut that I had had the pleasure of experiencing. She had another name for it, but I cannot bear to even think of it much less type it out here, having been brought up in the age of the politically correct. We'll just pretend that she said Brazil nut, okie doke?

Our first stop the next day was to procure a can of mixed nuts, and determine if my piece of nirvana really was a Brazil nut. Why didn't I just ask my anut aunt? I didn't want her to know I ferreted one of her nuts. (Of course, she'll read this on Monday morning and think, "Man! I thought the Chex mix tasted differently this year...now I know the recipe was missing a nut!") Anyway, we emptied the opaque can of mixed nuts into a bigger, clearer bowl, and dug around to find the nut in question. You know that whole Brazil Nut Effect? Well, I know it now...and wish I had then, and thought to shake the can before opening it, so we wouldn't have had to dig so arduously.

Indeed, my mother was absolutely right in the Brazil-nutty likeness to my nut. However, with only five or six Brazil nuts in the can, it would have been a crime to not eat handfuls of the peanuts, cashews, and almonds too. I'm a law-abiding citizen, and take such things seriously. Have you ever seen a list of IBS trigger foods, the foods an IBS sufferer ought to avoid? It's daunting. It's restricting. And it really should be honored. It really, really should...and they really aren't kidding when they list nuts and nut butters either. Who needs a serpent and an apple tree? I have Chex mix and a Brazil nut.

Same end, though.