I’m going to pick up right where we left off last week. It’s about 3:30 in the morning; I’m sitting on my kitchen floor covered in vomit from two different generous donors. In the past few hours leading up to this moment, I hadn’t noticed that the temperature outside had dipped about 15 degrees, the wind had picked up to about 25 mph, and it was now raining torrentially. I’d just became aware of this weather update because I was now opening the kitchen door, thankfully less than a foot away from the large garbage receptacle that both my daughter and I had just puked in and on. As soon as I was able to shut off my own purge valve, one of my first thoughts was to get the trashcan outside. Once I had gotten it out, I was actually relieved that it was raining so hard. Now I could just take off the lid, and leave it and the can out here overnight, and let Mother Nature take care of a large portion of the cleansing process.
I also let the driving rain remove some of the regurgitated morsels from my body. I was soaking wet shivering violently, and absolutely freezing, but it seemed a small price to pay for effortless chunk removal. It was at this time as I stood in the eight feet of grass that separates my house from my neighbors that I declared the condition of my boxer shorts to be unsalvageable. I knew that my wife had my daughter in the shower cleaning her up, which bought me some time. I made the executive decision to drop my drawers right there where I stood and leave them. So now, I’m completely naked, soaking wet from head to toe, freezing, with remnants of my daughter’s last meal in my hair and beard and standing outdoors in the middle of the night. I’m just a very sinkable putt distance away from my neighbor’s kitchen window, and I just realized that like a complete dumbass, the first light I saw fit to turn on through this whole ordeal was my own porch light. So my little leaf covered burlesque stage is now completely illuminated.
I’m going to flash forward just for a minute because this is where it gets a little weird. When I looked outside the next day, once the storm had subsided a bit, the trash can and lid were there almost completely rid of the yuck. But my underwear was nowhere to be found. As I stood there, mentally perusing the possibilities, I couldn’t help but start laughing out loud. True or not, this is the story I’m going with. Somewhere in the woods around my neighborhood, there is an ambitious young good intentioned raccoon. He has poor eyesight but a keen sense of smell. And he is now the laughing stock of his entire tribe with a stigma he will never shake. You fall a couple of notches on the food chain when you become a pariah among nocturnal, garbage can scavengers. I’m sorry about your luck little buddy, but thank you for providing a little bit of comic relief to an otherwise crappy night.
Now, back to my current predicament. I had to work fast because I wanted to be cleaned up before my daughter was through in the shower. She’s an eternally thoughtful, selfless, and caring little girl. If she came out and realized that any of her sickness had gotten on me, or that I had to clean it up, she’d have been mortified, and spent the rest of the night crying and apologizing profusely. She would feel this bad because she’s also aware of my sort of phobia with bodily function remnants. She knows instinctively that if I walked up on someone trying to steal my car, and they wanted to keep me at bay, they’d have a much better chance waving a finger at me with a huge booger on the end of it than with a gun or knife. Blades and bullets, I’ll take my chances, but nasal nuggets, I’ll have to hope for the vehicle’s safe return. My poor little Princess was having a rough enough night without being saddled with guilt.
I ran back inside, grabbed a couple of kitchen towels, and started to give myself a standing sponge bath. All the while, trying desperately not to breathe through my nose, look down, or think about anything that had recently taken place in this room. I finished cleansing myself with the two dishtowels, and realized that the floor still needed some work. I had already spent more than ample time on the kitchen floor tonight, so any cleaning was to be done from a full upright position. I threw both dishtowels on the floor, placed a foot on each of them, and proceeded to Brian Boitano my way to a clean kitchen floor. I skated every square inch of tile within the parameters and allotted time of a short program, and even managed to toss in a triple axel. (I never dreamt I’d have call to use a male figure skating reference in my column, but it’s too late now. The damage is done.)
The floor was now rid of any stomach refugees, and of course, the two towels went immediately outside to the trashcan. I’m paranoid about the condition of my feet knowing that only a thin layer of cloth had separated them from the chunky liquid carnage. I decided to wash them in the kitchen sink. The most logical route to take would be to sit on the counter, and put both feet in the sink together and use the sprayer to clean them. Keep in mind that I’m a raging lunatic with OCD, who’s now been awake for about 21 hours. This was not a viable option. I would spend the rest of my days in this house knowing that my ass was once where I prepared food. Even with a towel separating cheeks from granite, I’d just never get past that. Instead, I opted for the flamingo. This is where I stand upright in front of the sink on one foot, while placing the other foot in the kitchen sink for its cleansing, and then rotate. I wasn’t exactly spry or limber enough to successfully pull this maneuver off when I was in high school, let alone now. But here I was, completely naked, freezing, wet, dead tired, two drinks in, 43 years old, carrying a fresh, new 28 pounds from quitting smoking, taking turns standing on two knees both of which require surgery, and it’s almost 4:00 am. Somehow, I managed to pull it off, though I did in fact sustain some minor injuries.
I quickly ran into my room, threw on some clean drawers, a tee shirt, and my slippers. I then ran upstairs, grabbed a fresh pair of underwear and clean pajamas for my daughter, along with her best friend, Snoopy. On the way back, I stopped in the kitchen, filled a cup with room temperature ginger ale, placed a bendy straw in it, and got a handful of saltines. I ran back into my room, set all of these items on my side of the bed, and was kneeling in the bathroom holding up a clean towel for her by the time the shower curtain opened. This entire process transpired over approximately ten minutes or less. I may be a little weak in the stomach at times, but I’m a four-tour veteran Daddy, and a damned good one at that. Assuming my little girl doesn’t read this article, she’ll never know what happened while she was in the shower.
She dried off, got dressed, and climbed into my side of the bed to slowly sip her ginger ale. I had gotten some towels, a cold washcloth, and a freshly lined trashcan to set next to her. I grabbed a chair from the dining room, and my reading glasses, and set up shop right next to the bed where I would hold vigil for the night. After about three or four minor bouts with me holding both the trash can and her hair, she finally settled down to sleep. By this point, we were only about forty minutes shy of my wife’s alarm clock going off to send her off to the hospital for the day. She of course was pacing the floors having an inner battle regarding whether to go and do her clinicals, or stay home with her sick daughter. I went to great lengths to reassure her that I was quite capable as a father and that we would be fine, though I knew at least an hour before she did what her ultimate decision would be. Momma bear wasn’t leaving the den today; at least not without her cub.
Our sick daughter was now in a deep, comfortable sleep. I was sitting in a chair next to her wearing reading glasses so I could play Sudoku on my phone, and Mommy had gotten into a horizontal position on the other side of the bed as if there were an outside shot of her actually going to sleep. All was somewhat calm for a few minutes. Just as I had contemplated migrating out to the couch to try and catch some winks, a sound came through the monitor from one of the other bedrooms. It was my toddler who had just awakened coughing violently, sounding like the caseworker from Beetlejuice. And the hits just keep on coming. We’ll pick up from there next week. This day just keeps getting weirder. Thanks for playing along.
Until next week,
Syd Nichols
