In this life some things do bear repeating:

• Hearing “I love you” at the end of the night.
• Fried Chicken Mondays at our local grocery.
• The sunrise.
• This album:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However. In this life, some things should NOT be repeated.  Things like:

• Grease 2. (I know, I know, a sequel, blah blah, isn’t exactly repeating, blah, you get you get the idea)
• The Mc Rib.
• Justin Bieber interviews.
• Instructions I give my toddlers at bedtime.  See shrill in Websters dictionary.  Or just watch the trailer to Godzilla and you’ll get the idea.

 

With all that in mind, let me tell you a story.  It’s called:

 

The Flu That Came to Our House and Stole Momsie’s Will to Live.

 

It all started with the husband.  A week or so ago, he was up all night with the heaving jeevies, and then slept the entire next day.  I would come up, administer Sprite and a few Saltines, and then high tail it outta that room because Momsie  Cannot Get Sick Or Someone Will Pay.

And then… all was well.  It was quiet.  Too quiet.  And, as often happens in those bad horror movies where you think, wow, the bad guy came, was killed off with a lot of bleach and Lysol spray, so we’re all good now…

BAMMO, bad guy’s not dead! He’s still ALIVE!  Like in Friday the 13th part 2 and 4 and 12, etc!   He KEEPS COMING BACK. And, what’s even MORE scary is that PEOPLE KEEP BUYING MOVIE TICKETS TO SEE HIM.

But, I digress.  And,  I am ruining the suspense.   Stay with me.  We’re on rising action:

 

Another week passes.  We all are just living life, eating food, you know, breathing.  We have no clue.

Then, Momsie gets a funny little twinge at about 2 pm on a Monday  (I know this because Daniel Tiger was on.  We always watch Daniel Tiger.  And now? I can’t look at his fuzzy plaintitive face without getting erpy.)

2:15 pm:   Every bodily function I ever had looked at each other, shrugged, and just up and left.  The jerks.

I stayed in this state of extreme duress and confusion, me in one tiled, cold bathroom, all bodily functions vacationing off somewhere in Costa Rica or some such place, until the hubs got home, sprayed me down with Lysol and a shower, and got me in bed.

And then it was just a matter of time.  The flu took Blonde next, reducing him to a series of truncated questions at 1 am:

“Whyyy?”

“When am I gonna-?

“I think – ”

“Is this ever-?”

“Wat’s DAT?”

 

Poor darling.  Usually he has such long-winded and multiple choice questions, but really, I totally understood him.  Know why?  I was still blerghing all over the place too.  So there we were, a moist, feverish mass of vacated bodily functions smooshed into one truly miserable bed.

The husband had long ago abandoned me for the kids’ room.  Smart move, I guess, but still…  where’s the camaraderie?  Isn’t there something in the marriage contract about “No one gets left behind”?  So,  let’s just say, if I was the U.S. and he was, perhaps, some tiny foreign country wanting trade deals?  Embargo zone.  For a long time.

And then, after Blonde started to maybe, just maybe, feel a weensy bit better?  That’s when Red got it.  Of course.  Probably because he wanted to cuddle with his so-called father, a man I now refer to as Disgusting Germ Carrier Ground Zero Guy Who Contaminated Us and Then Left to Go Sleep Somewhere Else.

And Red, only four, proceeded to shock and awe me not only with his stellar 3 a.m. lack of aim for anything remotely CLOSE to a bucket, and also with his really really deep desire to HUG me before, during,  and after each bucket attack.

Which, I understand.  Know why?  I TOO was still shellac-ing my house with my guts.  At this point there were NO MORE GUTS.   My guts HAD LEFT THE BUILDING.  THEY WERE LIVING IT UP IN COSTA RICA WITH ALL MY BODILY FUNCTIONS.

I’m sorry.  It’s a tough post to read, I know.  Pour yourself a Sprite and carry on.  I’ll wait.

 

 

So now, we will have what I would like to call the part of the plot called:

Falling Action.

This is, if you don’t know, the part my students always got wrong on their quiz questions.  And I can kinda understand.  For example, if you have just slogged your way through The Crucible, and all the good guys have ended up on the gallows saying the Lord’s Prayer, and prior to that your biggest issue that day was if you had enough money for a frappuccino after school, you do NOT really want to mess around with Falling Action. Falling Action is after the climax of the book and after that, really, don’t we just want to, BOOM, move on to the resolution and stop thinking about those poor people at the gallows?  Happy ending, Arthur Miller!  Please!

(“Well,” says the English Teacher, “No, not that you asked me, but I LIKE plot development  I happen to care about characterization and internal conflict and a rich story line!  I also like to think about irony and foreshadowing and all those other terms that I can throw at you in boldface, but that my students couldn’t identify on a quiz if their lives depended on it!”  (Hyperbole.  BOOM.) )

In this case?  With the flu bug as my antagonist who is all Hannibal Lecter on me and my guts?

Nope. I don’t want to mess with Falling Action either.

 

Anyhow.

After two days and very long nights of this, the revolting quarantined awfulness that was our home finally calmed itself down, and we all ate a cracker or two  and started, you know, walking around.  Putting on clothes.  Breathing.  You get the idea.

Next day, we still took it easy but it was kinda sunny.  We went outside.  We sat in the shade.  I ate a slice of apple.  We continued breathing.  And lo, it was good.

Day after that, boys were running around, I was up to an apple and some soup, and an actual load of laundry was washed, dried, AND put away.  We were on the mend!  It was wonderful!  (Except for the laundry part. Laundry will never die.)

We were feeling better and better!  Kids ate steak for dinner!  I made homemade ice cream!  There was much rejoicing in the land!

And that night at 3 am Blonde came in, crawled in bed, got up ON the hubs (Ground Zero Guy) and copiously yakked all over him.

And deep, deep, DEEP down in my horrible, evil, snark-riddled mind I had this thought:

  Finally.  FINALLY.  Somebody threw up on him, and not on me.

 

Resolution:  And that, my friends, is why it is quite possible that I am the worst wife EVER.

 

The end.

 

 

This post was brought to you today by:

PEPTO ABYSMAL