It’s rare when I have a string of three consecutive columns (this now being the third) that somehow connect.

If I recall, I have done what some might consider a short “series” of columns on the same topic. A set comes to mind about how the health-care industry came into being and how the government poking its nose in and taking control has all but destroyed it. That one was years ago, and we all know how the government has doubled down on its destruction of that whole part of the economy.

And there were, I’m sure, a couple of other topics in a news cycle that had me on the same topic for a few editions in a row.

But I don’t recall writing two disparate columns on topics having nothing to do with one another that came together in the way this one will. And while there was some personal suffering involved, in the end the laughter caused by the irony told me I should write something up, so you folks hopefully get a kick out of it as well.

Now, I don’t mean to just vomit something up to take up 900 words and fill a space in my paper. But that verb is precisely where this story begins, taking off where my last column ended, in the wee hours of the morning on the Friday of my golf trip last week.

As you may recall, I ended the travails of yours truly getting my buddies home from the hospital with the small lesson to readers of when your friends need some help, you drop what you’re doing and help them. Which is what my buddy and I did. Which earned us dinner out with one of those friends, as the other simply wanted to get back to his room, take his meds and get to bed.

Little did your author understand, something in that dinner set of a series of events to link my last two columns together. If you read my submission from two papers ago about health-department inspections and how one locally got reported, you can probably guess where this is going – and it isn’t about unprofessional and lazy reporting, which was the actual thrust of that writing.

Then again, a verb used previously in this column was a dead giveaway.

You see, I ended my last column with my lesson at taking care of your buddies for a few reasons. First, I was on deadline. Second, I hit my word count easily with what was already written. And third, there was no need to add anything from the night’s events after getting back to the hotel after dinner, as that time was spent typing away and enjoying some milk and cookies.

Yes, as our gang ages, the stories become much more lame as the hours get later, and adding anything to last week’s column would have been, lame.

But boy, in this case, I was wrong. And not in a good way or fun way. So, this isn’t going be all about how Craigy hit it big at the blackjack table. Although technically, I did spend quite a bit of time on the casino floor, albeit the floor of the bathroom. In the motel part of the casino, that is.

You know that feeling when you sit up in bed and feel like you better get to the bathroom, and not for the normal reasons.

So yes, you got it. There’s the connection for this and my previous two columns. Your favorite columnist got food poisoning.

Now, I can’t say exactly from what or where, but I got a pretty good idea. Now, some of you might say I got what I deserved because the health department could have prevented this with one of their surprise “inspections.” To be honest, I just think I got served up a healthy portion of irony.

And that’s because I’ll never change the premise I believe in: Restaurants aren’t in business to poison their customers. Fact is: No matter where one eats their meals – at home, a favorite dining place or grandmas – sometimes something undercooked (or just bad) might just get through. And when it does, it can have some painful (and gross) effects. And that’s what happened here.

I should add the fire alarm went off around 4 a.m. between bouts in the bathroom, just to give the story a bit more bombast.

So yes, after a miserable night and morning as the bad stuff worked its way in me and out of me from top to bottom, I’m laughing at the irony. The greatest of which is how this episode gave me food for another column. And no, I haven’t changed my take on how I think our health department should be a proactive force in our restaurants. And even if that’s all it’s doing, it can’t see, find or predict anything that’s going to happen. And outside of consistent, serious negligence where it should act, it’s largely a reactionary setup. That’s just its nature.

I don’t mean the health department should stop what it’s doing. I’m just saying what it does should be proactive and not punitive. If a few proactive visits don’t change things, then maybe it’s time for punishment. But I stand by this: No matter the number of proactive visits the health department makes to any restaurant, it can’t stop that one bit of food from being undercooked, or from going bad, or that one employee from not doing a 100 percent perfect job in all areas of food handling, or a customer or employee coming in with a bug. All it can do is instruct in the practices of food safety whether it finds “violations” or not.

Because no matter how perfect the job the health department does or your favorite restaurant does, there’s always going to that 0.0001 percent chance you might end up like me with the other P, puking (sorry) after you eat there.

Honestly, after all the dining out I’ve done in 64-plus trips around the sun, those aren’t the worst odds in the world, and way better than the casino. And no, this event didn’t begin there, in case you’re trying to ascertain where it did, although I did have one bet pay off and came home with a few bucks.

Frankly, I’ll take the odds on eating out or my silly bets on either of those any day of the week.

The only other odds in this scenario? The 100 percent irony. And it paid off in another column.

In Truth and freedom.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of The Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com