I got nothin'

I recommitted myself to blogging recently. One day I stood straight up from my chair, jabbed my fore-finger into the air as high as I could reach and declared with a loud and echoey voice (because I like to sit in the shower on a chair... and just think) "I promise from this day henceforth (I paused for dramatic effect and admired the sound of my voice reverberating off of the walls) ...to blog every Sunday night!" and then I quickly mumbled something like "Unless I am taking a nap or watching a really cool show, out of town, cutting my toenails, watching the SWAT team out my front window (which doesn't happen nearly enough since moving from Logan) or training my parrot to say 'Help me! I'm Michael Jackson trapped in this parrots body!' (should I ever happen to buy a parrot).

But this Sunday came and went and I didn't have any peculiar stories to relay or interesting observations to pass on. My kids love it when I tell stories. Bless their hearts, they are too young and innocent to realize I am a pathetic story teller. Not sure if it is my voice that is so monotonous it actually cures hyperactivity and insomnia... or if it is my side tangents that make my tales look more like mazes than a linear series of thoughts from point A to B. I can do OK writing a story, but Lord help us all, if I have to tell it. So, I fumbled around in my bag of childhood stories and procured one at random. Hope you enjoy!

At the time of these events, I must have been 8 or 9. It was winter time, fridgid outside and the cold and cough season had thrown her stuffy, mucus cape over the community. It was Sunday morning and I woke up with terrible sore throat. I hate colds and I was committed to turning this one in its tracks and back out the door before it could saunter in, turn on all of the faucets, plug up the drains and plop its heavy self down in the crook of the most tender parts of my sinuses. In my finite understanding of the medicine world, I had imagined Popeye living in my immune system and Vitamin C was like spinach. And if a little bit of spinach was good... more was better.

For breakfast I had a tall glass of orange juice, scrambled eggs, 2 grapefruit and 4 vitamin C chewable pills. My throat felt better already! The whole family got ready and we went out to the car. Everyone except for Lori. I couldn't understand how she would be the first one up and still be late. Hours were devoted in front of her mirror, curling, brushing, painting, spraying and moussing. I look back now and see the hairdos she wore and understand that it was a small feat of nature to get her hair to maintain that shape. One time I was at the beach and we had some KFC for lunch. As I picked the last bits of meat off of a bone I saw a seagull coming in to land by us. I coiled my arm back and launched the bone at the bird. End over end the bone sailed right at the bird. The bird saw it too. The bird and I could see that it was on course for a mid-air collision. It flared out it's wings and tail. Even its feet and beak were stretched as wide open as they could go. Just like opening up an umbrella or a parachute, the bird exploded in size. If you could take that bird and freeze it in time, coat it in lacquer, and put it on your head, that might give you an example of what kind of hair my sister-- and the other girls were wearing at the time.

As a result, Lori was always late for church. The ritual went as follows. Mom stood in the kitchen and shouted "Come on! we are leaving!" In essence "All aboard!" We would all gather in the kitchen and mom would shout down the stairs "Lori! We are LeAvInG!!!" or "Last call!" Lori would shout back "OK! I'm coming!" we would all wander out to the car in the garage, wait the complimentary 30 seconds and then leave. Lori would then show up at church 10 minutes later.

This morning was no unusual event. Mom shouted her customary boarding calls and we left. In our church, the building was built in several stages over many years. The primary for some reason had all of the classrooms upstairs. I trudged up the stairs that at the time seemed like they were 100 or so feet long, and went and sat down in opening exercises with my class. I sat on the furthest seat in, next to the wall. Everything seemed great. We started with a prayer and began singing. Suddenly my hands felt clammy and I felt beads of sweat accumulating on my forehead. My mouth began to get really moist and I felt a clunk in my stomach as the production wheels came to a stop. I muttered to myself "Oh no! not now!" and slumped over and rested my head on the wall. The cool glossy white painted wall felt good on my burning face. I felt a gurgle in my stomach "NO!" I muttered again. But my pleadings went unheeded. I could tell my stomach was none too happy about whatever was floating around inside of it. and it was making plans really quick to purge the system. "Uh uh!" grumbled and pressed my arms into my gut. It groaned back and I could feel the pressure building. This was code red! An alarm went off in my head followed by an alert "aaoooggaa aaooggaa!" I was shocked at how quickly we had gone from all systems normal to reverse thrust.

I scooted past everyone sitting on the row as quickly and politely as I could and as I passed my teacher on the end I muttered "I don't feel so good". Unobstructed I began a full trot to the nearest bathroom. Out the primary room, around the corner, down the 100 feet of stairs that now looked like 300 feet, down to the bottom of the stairs around the corner! I just had to make it past the cultural hall and the wall with all of the coat racks on it, around ONE more corner, just a few more steps to the bathroom and then just a few more to the toilet! "COME ON! WE CAN DO THIS!" and "Who the HELL decided to put the bathrooms way over here!!!" I rounded the second to last corner at full stride. Paul Revere wasn't as hasty as I was now. But already I could feel the warm, burning flow of shame rushing up my throat. I pursed my lips and covered my mouth with my hand. My lips braced like they were playing Red Rover with the Devil himself. my fingers backing the whole operation. My legs churned like the pistons of an Indy car on the home-stretch checkered flag run. The stinging flow smashed into my mouth with the pressure of a fire hose. my tight lips and clenched fingers only gave the stream of puke more distance. As I ran past all of the coats I am sure I sprayed every last one of them with a fine stream of fluid just as toxic as sulphuric acid. Still it was hardly a concern of mine. As I rounded the last corner I dropped my shoulder and smashed through the bathroom door.

There was a man standing at the urinal. He gaped at me like I was wearing a gorilla suit and a tutu. I breezed past him, crashed through the stall door and halted directly over the toilet. A tiny dribble of spit was all that remained in my mouth. It seemed to giggle as it fell from my tongue into the water, as if to say "That's all you got into the toilet!" The man at the urinal stood there like he didn't know what to say. He stood there staring at me, as if waiting for me to do one final stunt. Finally he gathered some of his wits back about him and asked "Um... who... who is your dad?" I told him and he stood there still looking at me "I'll... um... I... I am going to go get him for you." I waved him away and groaned "Yeah"

I shuffled over to the mirror and looked at myself. There was vomit in my hair, on my face, on my hand, all over my shirt, on my tie, splattered on my scriptures, sprayed down the front of my pants and chunks were resting peacefully on my shoes. My dad came in and took me home. I slowly made my way up the stairs and into the house. I wanted to clean up, get into some clean clothes and go to sleep. I swung the door open to the house and there stood Lori just leaving. Her eyes lit up, she covered her mouth with one hand and pointed at me with the other and just started laughing. She laughed and laughed so much she stumbled around and had to brace herself against the kitchen counter to stay on her feet.

I felt like I been run through a paper mill and now I was being laughed at. I tried my best to look miserable and I felt worse now that I was found to be such a funny sight. Yet I couldn't help but smile. I groaned past her to my room. And I heard her snorting and giggling all the way out to here car. She told me when she got to church the bishop was in the hall with a rag cleaning up my puke.

Time heals and now I can look back and laugh. But to this day, you can still see stains on my old set of scriptures where they were sprayed. The moral of the story kids, There is too much of a good thing. Vitamin C overdose is very real and even Popeye can have too much spinach for his own good, but if you are looking for a quicker method to getting out of something on account of being ill than eating Beto's, I might be able to give you some pointers.