Carbonated drinks: for most creatures, a harmless fizzy beverage.
However if your species happens to be incapable of burping to release the gas, a painful experience. Perhaps not deadly, but certainly not comfortable.
Gox stared at the beverage. At the perpetual bubbles within. In his experience, bubbles came out and never came back.
This was one amongst the many new things he was dubious about encountering as a reluctant ambassador.
“Why do the bubbles form?”
“It’s a human thing,” said the Gyiik host. “A mild acid that produces relatively harmless gas. It has the amazing property of making beverages tastier.”
Amazingly, it did. How the Giik had managed to add the acidic components to Poba juice was beyond him, but the bubbles did something with his tongue.
Gox probably drank too much, too fast. It was the temptation of taste without the forethought of pondering what happened to the gas.
Gox very soon found out the difficult way.
He got halfway through a sampler of alien foods before the growing pocket of gas made itself known in the form of physical discomfort. A really horrible physical discomfort.
“What is one supposed to do about the gas?” he quavered.
“Most belch,” said the Gyiik.
“Please? What is ‘belch’?”
Which is why it has become vitally necessary for all restauranteurs to know what is safe to serve their customers, before they try any. Nobody wants to handle the results of gas-forced diarrhoea ever again.
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