Camille took me to Chili's when I visited her during her first month at college. She and her friends made fun of the waiter, for reasons I can't remember, but I do remember that it took quite a while to get his crap into gear and take our order. I'm not a huge fan of Chili's, so I carefully dissected the menu in an effort to find something I may like. My craving changed 5 or 6 times, and when the waiter returned, I ordered some sort of chicken kabob dish (which failed to change my opinion of Chili's). My sister gave me a raised eyebrow and a perplexed gaze, one which came unexpectedly and not understood. And then she explained.

Chicken? Chicken? You ordered chicken?!?

I didn't realize that Camille had not seen my diet and--- as a result--- palate change over the past six months, and to see her big brother order anything that didn't require the slaughter of a pig or cow was quite an alarm. The brother whose favorite food on Thanksgiving was not the turkey, but the rib roast? The brother who ordered a medium rare New York Strip anywhere and everywhere? The brother who mocked her default selection of chicken strips or chicken nuggets or rosemary chicken or whatever the chicken special was?

I tweaked my diet this year in four ways: I've replaced many times I would have eaten red meat with chicken or fish, decreased my salt intake, made water my beverage of choice, and said goodbye to iced tea. You probably assumed these changes were choices based on health factors... until that fourth item. How is iced tea bad for you? Well, I needed a change for health reasons, but not for reasons you'd normally expect.

I needed fix to the health issues responsible for my kidney stones.

They caused me indescribable pain. They hindered my normal routine. They interfered with my sleep. They affected my studies. They terminated my already-waning social life. They lowered my spirits. I never want to deal with kidney stones again. And these slight adjustments in my eating habits should prevent me from ever dealing with these little balls of terror again.

Or so I hope. Tomorrow I go to the doctor, seven months after passing my last stone, and see if another little bundle of joy has festered into my kidney.