Thursday morning I heard my darling Becca hollering from her crib for some early-morning help. She didn’t formulate the word “help,” but I could tell it was a distressful cry. I walked in to find her covered in barf. Her crib was marinating in barf. Her face was marred by barf. It would have broken my heart, if I wasn’t so upset about the fact that this could only mean one thing.
For those of you with no children, or with one…allow me to paint a picture for you of what happens when a member of your burgeoning family of 8 gets a flu bug.
It starts with one. Usually a young one. One individual ralphing all over themselves and the furniture.
Then, just as they’ve started to show small signs of improvement, and you have been solemnly kneeling for hours, offering humble and desperate supplication that it was “something that the child ate” and not, in fact, something transmittable that will spread like a vomitous plague throughout your home…a second child is hit with it.
And then a third.
And then a fourth.
And then…your home becomes the scene of this hybrid of a horror movie and an Agatha Christie “who-done-it” mystery. Who’s next? Who will go down in a frantic, hopeless flame of puke?
And you’re trapped. You can’t go anywhere. It’s too late for you! You are exposed! You just stay close to home base, hoping it isn’t your turn yet to play Blow-Chunks Roulette. You get edgy with family members, trusting not one soul and wondering who allowed this enemy into the house. You sit in silence, accusing eyes dart back and forth. You start to notice every nuance as a clue. “Hmm, I’m not that hungry for lunch. NOT THAT HUNGRY! That can only mean ONE THING! My gosh, the HUMANITY! It’s me!”
“I’m next!” you yell out, hunkering down in your bedroom like it’s a bunker and this is, in fact, The End for you.
And you wait.
And I wait.
And the suspense…IS KILLING ME!
It's been 62 hours since the inception of this episode, and so far…
The Victims:
Becca – Check
Tanner – Check
Roxanna – Check
Connor – Check
Katie – Check
Remaining survivors:
Garren
Abbie
Me
And I feel the percolating starting. And I hate throwing up more than any other singular thing. But there is nothing else to do. Just sit in the dark. And wait. For the end. My friends...adieu.
