Alpha and Omega3

The Alpha male in the house, having read up on his pregnancy homework, has been asking me to take Omega 3 fatty acid fish oil supplements. I guess it helps develop our baby's intellectual prowess. If this is the case, then it is an early example of how I will be sacrificing for my child. I can't tell you how much I did not want to take these supplements, on so many levels. For starters, I hate fish. Yes, hate is a strong word, but I really don't care for it. I will eat fish that does not taste like fish: the freshest of salmon, a mild Halibut, or even a Walleye so long as it's deep-fried in an inch of breading and doused with lemon juice and very mayonaise-y tartar sauce. Or tuna- but again, with enough mayo and bits of pickle that it cancells out the fact that it's a fish, in nutrition and taste.

Another reason why I am somewhat opposed to taking the supplement is because I am not the most comfortable, especially after a day of craving-satisfying, with ingesting something with the words "fatty" and "oil" in it, on purpose. Isn't this stuff supposed to be good for you? I find it mind-boggling that the stuff is acutally reported to provide heart health. A healthy heart from fat and oil? I'd rather just eat chips.

I finally consented to taking the Omega3, but was disconcerted to find when I opened the cap that these suckers were huge. Now, I am a good pill-taker. By age 5, I impressed by parents by taking my daily dose of Digoxin without water, without trouble, every time. But when I looked at these big fish, I had to form a strategy. Would I choke if I threw it in with the prenatal vitamin and Zantac all at once? Would a 2-ounce Dixie cup of water carry these three all at once safely down the esophagus without the threat of lodging on the way down?

I decided to try, but immediately hit a road block. The pills were sticking together inside the bottle. Oh please, no. I had gotten this far, I couldn't turn back now. Did they really have to cling together like that? One big gelatenous brick of fatty fish oil. It's like they were a school of pills, resembling the little fish friends that gave up their surface excrement to collect inside these casings. With a shake, no two, no three big shakes, they loosened, and it was time.

Now, the bottle claims- in small letters, but they're there - that there is no fishy aftertaste. That's great. But they said after taste. What about before? I tenatively stuck out the tip of my tongue and touched it to the casing. Sigh. No fish. It actually resembled a mild vanilla flavor, which was a relief, though I still washed it down with the quickest of gulps. I was not giving the pill any more time to dissolve than the 0.2356 seconds that it was in my mouth.

And so it digests, swimming down to wherever it goes, and I am now racing off to bed to fall asleep lest I burp.