I feel like I am
crawling out from under a house blown over by a tornado. Kind of like
when the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz dies and they all come peeking
out and the black and white turns to Technicolor.
Yeah, that is how I feel, though it is not a tornado that hit us, oh no
my friends…it was another kind of storm. A sh*t storm. Literally and
figuratively a sh*t storm.
My day was going along according to plan. I switched
my schedule to work early so I would be available to volunteer for a PTA
event. I was kicking this day’s ass. Work/life balance? Check.
Helping out in my community? Check. I was the
mom that had it all. Until I didn’t. I was working the ticket
booth/snack stand at the school event when it happened. That one lonely
foreboding drip of sweat trickling ever so slowly down the center of my
back. My jaw clenches and saliva begins building
in my tightening throat.
Oh God no! Please God for the love of St. Elmo please
just let me be hot! Oh, by the way you are more than welcome for that
ear worm…”I can see the new horizon underneath the blazin' sky…I'll be
where the eagle's flying higher and higher…Gonna
be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels..Take me where my
future's lyin', St. Elmo's fire”. But it wasn’t just the temperature
of the room. It was far more sinister. I was hit by the stomach bug.
Crap! I was stuck there for another hour.
I made the best of it, passing out snacks with a forced smile on my
face 1.) Because I was grateful for their support of the school …2.) Out
of fear because if I opened my mouth I could not guarantee an
accompaniment of vomit would not also slip out with the
word ‘thank you’…and 3). Because I had a pretty high degree of
certainty I was infecting these poor families that came out for a night
of fun. No need to call the CDC, I know where the outbreak started. I
am patient zero.
The event ends. I drive home as if Anderson Cooper
were waiting for me with a cup of coffee and some snarky gossip. I run
straight to the bathroom and begin to purge. I was throwing things up I
ate days ago. It would not stop. I was throwing
things up from next week I haven’t even eaten yet. I have no idea
where it was coming from. I somehow made it to the couch and there I
stayed for a good 7 minutes until another round hit. This cycle
continued for 8 hours…then the fun really started, but
I don’t want to get ahead of myself just yet. In the meantime Chuck
got bitten by this nasty, nasty bug. I swear with all the money that
goes into these exotic diseases like Zika, why the hell can’t they
through a couple of pennies to finding a flippin cure
for the stomach bug? So now the 2 of us are down for the count. It is
the middle of the night so the kids are sleeping; thank the walking up
right Gods for that little blessing. So two of us with one toilet… our 2nd
bathroom is in the middle of being redone. Two adults. 1 toilet. You
do the math. The stomach bug which has now progressed from vomiting to
include the soupy poopy. You know the saying “sh*t or get off the
pot”. Truer words have never been spoken.
I was so dehydrated from throwing and going I was
having leg/foot cramps. My bones ached. The body aches were far worse
than the other stuff. At one point I had to go to the bathroom so bad,
at this point the 2 of us were p*ssing water
out of our asses, but the leg cramps were so bad I contemplated just
sh*tting on the couch and just torch the place when the dust settled. I
mean at this point there was so much methane built up in our house it
was not a far stretch of the imagination. I
mean it could happen. I was waiting for the windows to blow out. We
were one good fart away from disaster. Oh and speaking of passing gas,
that was a tenuous situation at best. You couldn’t trust the little
buggas. You try to release just a tiny bit of
pressure, but you give your ass an inch, it takes a mile….you think you
are good with a small release of pressure but it comes out like a
flippin’ balloon you just didn’t tie in time. You know in all those
cheesy teen movies when the child actors way overact
a scene and their crazy experiment backfires and when the dust settles
they are standing there covered in soot and their hair is standing
straight up? Yeah? It was like that.
There were noises heard and things seen that my husband and I cannot un-see or un-hear.
I think if you are thinking of marrying someone it should be mandatory you survive a stomach bug together. Forget the Pre-Cana
classes. The true test is seeing if you can walk in on your spouse
mid-sh*t while they are puking and reload the toilet paper. If you can
survive that there is NOTHING you can’t
survive. Now, in an effort to save my marriage I will not be
commenting on the Man Flu. But, if the weather had been a little nicer
and the windows open during this plaque upon our house, our poor
neighbors would have thought we were porn addicts. The moaning
coming from our house was enough to put Larry Flint to shame. Anyone
with a husband knows EXACTLY what I mean!!
So as the new day dawns and our GI tracts are starting
to stabilize I realize at some point I will need to clean that
bathroom. Our poor, poor bathroom… We asked A LOT of it in the previous
24 hours. I was trying to put a plan in place.
I am going to need a Haz-Mat suit. But, for reasons I don’t completely
understand myself I know for a fact our local medical supply store does
NOT carry Haz-Mat suits. OK, so I could go to Dick’s Sporting Goods
and get some of those rubber waders fly fishermen
use and a raincoat. I then remember the last time I went there.
Remember that debacle? I got stuck in a sports bra for an uncomfortable
length of time while Anna stood laughing at me. See reminds me of that
every time we drive by. I could go to Home Depot
and get a respirator at least. There is a brand new Dollar Tree right
next door, I could grab one of those pincher graspers that helps
vertically challenged people reach things. I know I am short, but I am
thinking of getting them for my T-Rex arms. If
I try cleaning out that toilet my stubby little arms will be shoulder
deep in the vomit/sh*t stew that I am sure if festering in there. Oh,
as a side note, I was at Dollar Tree the other day…as I am most days and
they had a help wanted sign-up. I really
wanted to take an application. I can fake a smile as good as the rest,
I know where EVERY ass-aching item is in there and just think, with an
employee discount it could very well be 75 cent Tree for me! A win-win
for everyone. But I digress…I did think
of hiring someone specifically to clean just our bathroom.
Unfortunately, that is not in the budget. It is a tiny bathroom but
even if I paid someone 10 million dollars it would not nearly be enough,
plus they would need to sign a non-disclosure payment
and that runs into all sorts of legal fees. All while I was
contemplating how to make the bathroom safe for humans to enter it
again…Chuck comes out and tells me he bleached it down. Now that, that
my friends is true love. I want to give a special shout
out to my mother in law for taking our children overnight. She saved
their lives. It really was like the Lord of the Flies…they had donuts
and candy for breakfast, they were watching God knows what on You Tube
and Emily had her white trash uniform on consisting
only of a diaper and sticky hair. And to my fellow PTA moms and anyone
I may have come in contact with that night. I am truly sorry. If you
do come down with this vicious stomach bug all I can say is Godspeed my
friends. Godspeed.
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