The date was 3 December, 1981, the movie was entitled An American Werewolf in London, the setting, a grubby little theatre at Northtown Mall, a place which had certainly seen better days. My date was a bright and eccentric young woman whom I’d met at school.

Twenty-five years later, she and I rented An American Werewolf in London on DVD and JP, DL, Ben and JCP came over to watch it with us. The next day, Suzi and I paid a visit to Texas de Brazil, a Brazilian-style steakhouse. Men in crisp, white uniforms brought around skewers heavily laden with steak, chops, bacon-wrapped chicken breasts and picana – garlic-marinated beef roast. It was magnificent and extremely filling!

All this is really just a rather sneaky attempt to introduce you to my group’s (utterly absurd):

THREE LEVELS of FULLNESS

You see, when you eat, you will eventually reach a level of satiety – when you feel just full enough to happy and contented. This level of fullness is called the “Rundly-Trundly Kitten” phase (also known as the “Roly Poly Kitten” stage). You’ve eaten enough, your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and you feel like it might be time for a nap.

Now, perhaps the food is better than all that. Perhaps you can’t quite stop yourself in time and you find yourself just a tiny bit over full … Afrah Mediterranean Restaurant anyone? You may not be in pain, but you are a little bit past that cute little kitten. This level of fullness is called Plump Mary (a/k/a Plump Merry). This name comes from a T-Shirt that Dave Barry saw when he was visiting Japan.

Okay, got that? Now – it gets a little bit weird from here out.

Now you had a bit too much food. You’re in trouble. You’re huge, bloated, uncomfortable …

The many creators of Dungeons and Dragons came up with a LOT of monsters. They went from the sublime to the ridiculous, and sometimes the ridiculous was pretty sublime. One of the silliest things they came up with was a ghastly and powerful giant frog called (aptly enough) the froghemoth. It seemed funny, until your D&D characters encounter a two-story amphibian with a really nasty attitude.

How humiliating is it to have your characters eaten by something like that?

So, when you get to that stage beyond the adorable, fuzzy kitten, beyond the oddly named and merry Ms. Mary. You’ve reached a challenging pinnacle of gourmanditry (just made that word up! Like it? Feel free to use it as often as possible!)! Congratulations my friend, you have reached the FROGHEMOTH LEVEL.

Nasty customers, those froghemoths (but what a great name “frog+behemoth=froghemoth … say it with me “frog-HEEEEE-moth”). As a parenthetical note, after I hit forty, I resolved that I’d swear off being a froghemoth ever again. It’s just too obnoxious of a feeling.

After Texas de Brazil, I was plump, quite merry, not unlike our friend Mary. Suzi said she felt the first traces of amphibian characteristics sneaking in. Perhaps her arms were waving around (just a tiny bit) like the tentacles of some huge frog-monster. I think she called it Tentacle Mary.