Before I published a post about blogging and life and commenting and feelings and that padded closet we all keep inside as a place to stuff our hurts, I promised myself that I would keep up with the discussion, not just read your thoughts and smile. The universe had other plans. I was struck, last night, a little after eleven, with the quickest, most foul stomach bug that I have yet encountered. It's like my children are little scientific experiments in how to create the most noxious, nausea-inducing, head-spinning stomach crap and give it to me for a few laughs at how well I moan over the toilet.
I had a few friends over for a glass of wine and not five minutes after they left I got that little something is not right feeling. You know the one? Five minutes later I was lying on the bathroom floor making insane bargains with the universe if I could please not feel like this ever again and if I was going to puke could we get it over with already.
The universe obliged. As I horked up lung tissue, I became increasing alarmed. I felt like hell, sweaty and dizzy and, you know, like I was losing the contents of my stomach into the toilet and the contents of my stomach were RED.
So I sobbed to Matt, "get in here, I think I'm puking blood."
Matt deigned to glance into the toilet from the bathroom door. "Or you drank red wine. Did you drink red wine?"
Well, golly gee, I surely did. It was one glass. Must we discuss my drinking habits from my death toilet? WHAT IS YOUR POINT?
"It's wine. Not blood. Wine."
Huh. Fairly relevant after all. Objection overruled. That shit stains, in case you were wondering.
Stomach empty, I was in that narrow flu-honeymoon, post-puking window when you KNOW you need to crawl into bed and go to sleep or you will most surely be right back in the bathroom. I croaked that Matt should switch the gold for candy in the Leprechaun traps and also could he dye the milk green, please?
Matt completely ignored me because he doesn't believe in Hallmark-sells-Leprechaun-card holidays and because he wants our children to grow up without any magic or whimsy in their lives. I, for one, pre-child-fast-acting-death-flu-from-hell had done my part by helping them make Leprechaun traps and then warning them to stay in their beds because Leprechauns nibble and their teeth are sharp. This slightly cruel twist backfired on me SPECTACULARLY when I had to spend the first hour after bedtime escorting sobbing children to the bathroom. "Ah-ah-ah doooon't want to be ni-ni-ni-bbled." Touche, you twisted, Grimm-brothers-reading-psycho and here, here's a foul preschool stomach fungus too.
In my weakened state, I did manage to put the candy in the traps. Because for the love of saints and little, green people and rainbows, Matthew, what is the point of enduring a night of terror worrying about being nibbled by a sharp-toothed Leprechaun if you don't get any freaking candy out of it?
I dyed the milk green too with my final non-puking breath. The kids loved it. They shrieked and capered and laughed hysterically this morning. How did they do it? Those naughty Leprechauns! Did they kiss it? Sprinkle magic in it?
Matt stumbled, at this point, bleary-eyed and stiff, from the basement where he had spent the night avoiding my gagging and also my germs. He observed the scene with Al Bundy distaste, lifted up the half-full gallon of milk and informed my little parrots bluntly: No. He peed in it.
Thank you, Matt, the magic is well and truly dead. I, however, survived. Barely.
And now, a little whimsy in the form of sharp-toothed green men traps.
That last one is just cute.
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