B*#ch Slapped By Flu Karma

The clock says 3:18 a.m. as I begin today’s…err….tonight’s…err…this morning’s blog. Although my eyes are straining to stay open, I feel compelled to make a written record of my missteps so I can review it in the future to avoid certain peril when similar circumstances arise. Let’s roll back the time machine to yesterday morning, at approximately 6:55 a.m. doing my normal routine getting T, my son, ready for school. I asked T what he wanted for breakfast, and in typical fashion, he ignored me. And in further typical fashion, I asked two more times, and was met with silence. I made my inquiry into his morning food selection a fourth time, having raised my voice to about a 7, which equates to moderately pissed off parent level. T evidentially sensed that I was getting perturbed by his non-responsiveness, and answered “I’m thinking.” The actual translation of what he had said is “I heard you the first three times, now leave me alone”, and while to a six-year old child, this may serves as an appropriate response, it only resulted in me becoming even more angered at him as it did not move me any closer to dispensing with the morning’s culinary task. T then began to complain that his throat was hurting. I really did not have time for this. We were already slightly behind schedule to get to school timely, and now a suspicious report of gullet-related discomfort. I tried to act like I had not heard him (engaging in a little juvenile tit for tat if you will for his non-cooperative behavior earlier), and told him we would be having French toast sticks for breakfast. T became adamant that he could not eat because his throat hurt, and he asked for a cough drop. I acquiesced to his request, and retrieved a piece of hardened, throat soothing elixir from the medicine cabinet, all the while eyeing the clock in the front room, now definitely being convinced I would not be getting to work on time after taking him to school. A few minutes later, I heard a crunching noise, and knew that T had completed the “sucking” phase of the lozenge. I presented T with a plate of hastily warmed up French toast sticks, told him to start eating, and quickly scampered off to my bedroom so as to not even give him the slightest opportunity to start clamoring about how his throat still hurt. T eventually ate three out of the four French toast sticks, and we actually made it to our destinations of work and school on time without any more complaints about his aching larynx. (eyes…getting…so…heavy…must…sleep. The remainder of this blog was penned some fifteen hours after I initially began it.)

After a stressful day of work, I picked up T from his after school program. On the way home, T exclaimed, “Good, tomorrow is Friday. That way I only have to go to school one more day.” There was no mention of his pained esophagus, and he asked to go the local gathering point of skateboarding juvenile delinquents otherwise knows as the nearest public park. After playing for 45 minutes, T had still not made mention of his sore throat, and I figured we were good as gold. After getting home, I made the rookie parent mistake of asking how his throat was feeling. T then went into what I believe to have been an Oscar-winning performance for his role as a tortured soul in “The Boy With the Excruciating Esophagus.” T began to whimper like a scared puppy and pointed to his throat to indicate the source of his discomfort. I asked several times over the next hour about what he wanted for dinner (and was having serious feelings of deja vu, likely stemming from the morning’s Breakfast Brawl 2011), however every idea I proposed for dinner was shot down with the same explanation that swallowing would hurt his throat. Realizing that our dinner-time dilemma had devolved into a seemingly frictionless non-stop merry-go-round of meal proposal and subsequent food denial, I told T that he should just take a bath, and maybe his throat would feel better. As T was in the bath, I talked to him about his homework for school that he needed to turn in the following day. T stated in an “it is so obvious you should know this” tone of voice, “I don’t think I will be going to school tomorrow because my throat hurts too bad.” My mental recording of my day immediately cued up to his comment when I picked him up from his after school program in which he commented about being required to go to school only one more day. It is probably due to the fact that in my profession I am surrounded by dishonest people (the clients, not the employees, although there are some sketchy employees) that I have become jaded about people’s honesty, and immediately concluded that my son was concocting a plan for getting out of school. As T finished up his bath, I even text messaged his mother alerting her to what I perceived to be his conniving ways.

After finishing up his bath, and getting his pajamas on, T came and snuggled up next to me on the couch. He then told me that his stomach now hurt. I told him that was probably because his nutrient deprived stomach was revolting against his stubbornness towards food, and was now beginning to growl at him. T started to have tears gather in the corner of his eyes as he whaled “I’m starving”, but then immediately followed this with the puzzling statement “I think I am going to throw up.” I hurried T into the bathroom, where he stood solemnly for the next minute or so in front of the toilet with nothing spewing violently from his mouth. I walked into my bedroom, and then heard him urinating into the toilet. He then yelled out, “I guess I just had to go pee. My stomach feels great now.” Oh, for the love of Pete’s sake I thought. I read T a story, put him in bed, and settled in on the couch for what I anticipated to be a relaxing evening of television viewing followed by a night of rejuvenating slumber. The rest of the evening was uneventful and stress free as anticipated, however it was sometime between 10:45 p.m. when I laid my head on my pillow and 2:15 a.m that the dastardly deities who maintain domain over the world’s diseases had decided that my heartless minimization of my child’s pain and scoffing at the possibility that he was ill had reached an unbearable level. It was during these hours that a viral attack had been unleashed on my child’s corporal being by these vindictive spirits in order to teach me a lesson. T came into my bedroom at 2:15 a.m. and reported that he had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom light sprung to life as he flipped the switch, but instead of hearing a stream of cascading urine echoing in the ceramic receptacle, my auditory senses were assaulted by the unmistakable guttural utterances that proceed the forceful ejection of undigested food particles mixed with gut juices. Poor little T’s stomach was really giving him the business, and I could do nothing but feel so sorry for him. After getting him cleaned up, we went into the living room and he curled up in a pitiful ball on the couch. T asked if I had any Sprite or Saltine crackers as we had used these items as all-important sustenance during his last bout of vomiting a few months earlier. I told him that we did not have either, so we got dressed up, and headed to the nearest all-night convenience store to purchase supplies.  I was in an old t-shirt, gym shorts and flip-flops, while Tyler was in his pajamas still.  We looked like the classic trailer park family you see at Wal-Mart at like 10:00 on a Thursday night.  The only difference is that we were on an emergency run, while I always get the feeling, based upon their leisurely pace, that the Wal-Mart family does this on a regular basis for entertainment. We entered the store, quickly picked up our needed items, and strolled up to the counter. Lo and behold there behind the counter was the same jackass who became famous in a past blog (You talkin' to me?) for treating me like an insignificant nuisance while he chatted away on his blue tooth. Tonight, Mr. Inconsiderate was auditorially au naturel, but even without his precious communication device glued to his head, he was just as rude as before. He did not verbally acknowledge us, but used the least energy possible and gave the same indifferent head nod he had used during my prior visit. I felt a little pity for the poor guy as I contemplated the possibility that he was not being rude, and rather that he was afflicted with WNS (Weak Neck Syndrome, formerly known as LANS or Lazy Ass Neck Syndrome until the ACLU filed suit against the medical community for using such a "...heartless and degrading label for a very serious condition.") The possibility of this horrible disease affecting this poor man quickly disintegrated when his head snapped around when a new customer entered the store. OK, so we were back at square one with him being a genuine a-hole. The transaction concluded with him mumbling our total at a barely audible level, and then failing to utter a simple thank you. As soon as T and I re-entered the apartment he vomited again in a plastic bowl that had been set out on the coffee table for the specific purpose of catching flying, chunky, foul-smelling debris so that he could avoid the long trek to the bathroom when nausea overcame him and to avoid the risk of the carpet becoming the victim of a regurgitated rain storm. The next two hours included T puking two more times, followed by a few episodes of unproductive retching, all the while passing the time watching the wonderful animated film, Despicable Me, whose title seemed so fitting for the situation.

T finally fell asleep on the couch around 4:45, and instead of risking waking him up by placing him in his bed, I retrieved my pillow and blanket from my bed, along with my alarm clock, and set up camp on the hard, unforgiving living room floor so as to be present in the event he woke up again and was unfamiliar with his surroundings. I spent the next 30-45 minutes struggling to find a comfortable position, and somehow managed to drift off to sleep for about 1 ½ hours before being startled awake by my blaring alarm clock which also woke up T, who was none to happy about being stirred from his short lived sleep. T eventually stayed home from school, and spent the day with his mom. I somehow struggled through the work day, my listless movements and sore back a nagging reminder of my arduous night. I promise from this day forth that in deference to the Germ Gods, I shall never again question the veracity of my child’s statements regarding the condition of his health! (let’s hope that insincere token promise keeps me from getting this nasty little bug)

****Blog Update (some 8 hours after originally posting):  My throat is starting to hurt.  Oh Germ Gods, I have offended you.  Please have mercy on me.  I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!