The Night From H-E-Double Hocky Sticks

Ya know theres nothing in the world like the sound of someone throwing up. It’s basically the only horrible sound in the world that people feel the need to imitate whenever they hear it. Last night I woke up to such a noise. Ahhh the stomach turningness of it all! Jake, my oldest son of 3, woke up last night puking his little brains out. Poor kid. What started out at midnight as hefty chunks every hour continues on this morning as dry heaves every half hour.

So, while Matt stayed with Jake hovering over his porcelain throne, I went to the kitchen to get a rag under the sink. We have some nice size windows in our house during which at night we always close the blinds to keep from being the neighborhood fish bowl. I saw as I came in that the blinds were not down however and I thought about closing them before I turned on the light to walk across the kitchen in my underoos but the sound of Jacobs puking made me irrational and a little panicy so I decided just to flip the switch and make a poor attempt to double over like a 90 year old grandma simultaneously try and shielding my womanly parts with my scrawny arms. Who would be up at midnight anyway? ...Apparently the neighbors across the street and all their friends, that’s who!

Well the puking continued on till 3:00 am which put him in our bed after having exhausted all my fitted sheets and pillow cases from not being able to make it there in time to help him open his half awake eyes and aim for the bowl. While he curled up next to Matt, I decided to make a run to the local gas pump and get some 7UP which I knew probably wouldn’t help anything much but my dad always did that for me when there was nothing more to be done and it always made me feel special if not better.

So I slipped on a pair of warm ups and a sweatshirt, did my best to throw my hair up into a halfway decent ponytail and wipe the mascara out from under my eyes. I took a glance in the mirror to see what the damage was….ha! The clerks were gonna think I was a drug addict on a munchie run. I pretended like I didn’t just get scared by my own reflection and grabbed the car keys.

As I opened the door to the mini mart I tried to push out the background music playing in my head of an old western scene where the dusty streets are deserted and two blockheads are about to do pistols at dawn. Ooooo eee oooo eeee ooooooooooo, wa WA waaaaa. Not a sole in sight, not even the old bar keep. I got what I needed and sat at the counter for a few minutes before starting to make those gestures. You know, the ones you know have to be done to get someone’s attention, but once they go past your lips they make you feel a little silly? Like, “ heeeeleeeooooo?” sometimes I do mine in a British accent “eny won hoooome?” I was there for so long making these silly noises that I finally decided just to leave my dollar on the counter and go home when suddenly an old crusty woman emerged from the back looking a little off and shaken. Mid-day I wouldn’t have thought twice about it but something just felt a little out of place so I asked her "Are you okay?" to which she replied "I am now." Weird I thought.

When I got back into the car my imagination took over and I thought of a series of possible events which could explain the odd feeling I got from the whole situation. Maybe she was being held hostage! Maybe the robbers were in the back and hopped that I would just leave my money and move along, trying to be kind and generous robbers, but I stood there singing greetings for so long they decided to send her out to take care of me. Ooooor!, Maybe she was a drug addict who was shooting up in the back and was so out of it that it took her a while to realized that the ringing in her ears wasn’t a side effect from the drugs, it was ME out front trying to get her attention so that she could take my stupid 99 cents and I could get back to my puking son! ...or she could have just been taking a smoke break and didn’t hear me come in the door. All A+ possibilities. I was leaning more towards the robber situation though so when I got home I made a quick jingle to the police to send some officers over there to check on her.

Anyway it all made out to be a very strange night. Strange indeed. Things are almost back to normal today. Although I’m a little ashamed to admit that as I took the trash out to the alleyway this morning I was halfway hoping to see the Exon station tapped off with yellow caution tape and investigators scouring the perimeter just so I would feel better about my wild imagination. No such luck. It may just be a cold hard fact of life that I’ve been blessed with an overactive imagination that is amplified when I’m awake after 3am. *Sigh*

As for Jake, he is feeling much better. Still a little weak but he’s content for now to encourage his little brother to stick his finger up my right nostril as I type so they can throw back their heads and laugh historically. Yup... back to normal.