Tomorrow we head off to visit the in-laws for a few days. This means I’m at risk of gaining a lot of weight.

I’ve mentioned before how the in-laws tend to start handing us beer and food as soon as we arrive. This will be especially true tomorrow as we will be arriving at supper time. This means we get to combine exhaustion and general crankiness with sudden carbo-load and beer. Even though we are at a house, my in-laws continue the Japanese tradition of everyone pouring beer for everyone else. I can be forced–through courtesy oddly enough–to drink even when I’ve had enough simply because someone sees I have an almost empty glass and points a bottle at me.

To make matters worse, the glasses are barely twice the size of a shot glass. One sip nearly empties it and encourages someone to pour me more. I then enter this odd dance of trying to eat whilst simultaneously drinking and offering my glass to be filled.

If this only lasted one night, it would be awesome. Unfortunately this dance continues the second night and the night after. I’ve slowly convinced them I don’t need beer at every meal and that slows things down. (They seem to interpret  “don’t need beer at every meal” as “don’t need AS MUCH beer at every meal.”)

Once I’ve got things slowed down, they trick me. They move the entire dance to a restaurant. This means there’s more beer and even more food.

Because it’s the new year, the drinking and eating will be especially heavy and there will be extra people around taunting my inner introvert. (This is also a trick, as it inspires me to drink more.) I’ll have to be pleasant and engaging and won’t have any place to escape to–at least not that’s heated.

By the time I get home, I’ll be ready for a diet, and, counter-intuitively, a drink.