Warning: The following contains graphic material. Reader discretion
is advised. If you are eating, and especially
if you are eating hot dogs or mandarin oranges, do not continue reading.
We had a biological incident at our house last
night. John came out of bed and said he needed a puke bucket. I was
feeling magnanimous, so I told him he could have one, and then dismissed his
nausea and sent him to bed. As you know with a 6 and 8-year-old in the
house, dismissing physical complaints is something like a domestic pastime
(e.g., taking two days to convince Sara that she wasn’t going deaf, and that
the reason her ear hurt was because she fell asleep with her earring pinned
between her arm and her head). Anyway, about 90 minutes later, I heard him
come to his door, and without so much as a whimper or a guttural grunt of
horrified anticipation, I heard the door open and what sounded like soup being
poured from a pot onto the carpet. Three times. The entire episode
lasted 5-10 seconds, which, all things considered, isn’t that long. But I
think that any reasonable person would agree that it is long enough to make it
to the bathroom that is approximately 18” from where he stood. I see no
reason why the carpet should have three bowls of soup, while the toilet and the
easily-cleaned tile floor in the bathroom should go hungry. Alas, such
are the caprices of Mother Nature when she slams the gear shift of digestion
into reverse and lets off the clutch all at once. My reaction to a puking
child is, and has always been, to ignore whatever needs for empathy the child
has, and to grab them by the back of the neck and force them to the nearest
puke-appropriate surface. Watching this happen is not unlike watching
somebody in an old-western try to sober up a drunken cowboy. It’s an
aggressive tactic, but it works. If a child wants empathy, blowing
half-digested hot dogs and mandarin oranges all over an uncommonly lush carpet
is not the way to get it. Anyway, I was unfortunately not the first on
the scene. Katelin was, and in spite of all her training, she
froze. She stood in mute horror while at least one, maybe two, of the
bowls of soup were served. My contribution was to emit a (for me)
uncommonly strong profanity, and then start shouting helpful things like:
“John! Why did you ask for a puke bucket if you weren't going to use
it?!!”, and “Kate! We have drills for this!! Don’t you remember the
drills?!!”, and “John! Did you see the bathroom? It’s right there!
It is a puke bucket.” But Kate is an
independent type, and for whatever reason, she didn’t want me to continue
helping, and I was sent upstairs to wash the boy. While he was in the
tub, I informed him that the next time he vomited on the carpet, he would be
cleaning it up, as well as paying for the carpet cleaning. He began to
tear up, and said “I didn’t know.” I said: “I know, buddy.
It's all right. You get one free one, and that was it.” I
then extracted from him a solemn vow to never throw up on a porous surface
again. All parents and alcohol users know what happened next.
Mother Nature loves an encore. Not 20 minutes later, I was laying
wide-eyed in my bed, rocking and moaning in the fetal position, while John lay
on a rubber sheet on the floor next to me. In case the rubber sheet
wasn’t big enough or close enough, he had again been provided with a puke
bucket, and an extra-large plastic-lined puke garbage can. This time we
did get the tight-throated, wide-eyed, grunting early warning system, and what
did he do, but stand straight up and step off the sheet and away from the
rubber sheet, Puke Bucket 1, and Puke Bucket 2, ready to serve soup to an entirely
different carpet. Luckily I was able to yell loud enough to get him to
mash his face into Puke Bucket 1, and the floor was saved. He proceeded
to throw up 4 more times. Throughout all this, I heard little from Kate,
except when I walked past the basement door, and she looked at me and
muttered: “Should we sell him?”
But, as Scarlett O'Hara said in Gone With the Wind : "Tomorrow
is another day." (To avoid any unnecessary metaphysical discussions,
we will assume that she said this yesterday, making today the "another
day" she was referring to. Incidentally, if I recall correctly,
after Rhett and Scarlett's little girl puked on the carpet, Rhett was so mad he
shot her pony). Anyway, the boy seemed to be feeling better this morning,
and all seemed right with the world as long as anyone equipped with a sense of
olfaction did not open the door to the basement, this in spite of Kate's solid
hour spent cleaning. The carpet cleaners are coming at noon. With
twelve hours of hindsight under our belts, we have decided not to sell the boy.
However, if he pukes on the carpet again, we may be open to the idea of a
trade.
P.S. Scarlett O’Hara actually said a number of
things that apply quite well to this whole situation. It’s uncanny, really. Perhaps the entire book and movie were nothing
more than an elaborate metaphor for dealing with puking children. See below:
"I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."
"Well...but remember, I warned you."
"I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again."
Jared Morton
"I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."
"Well...but remember, I warned you."
"I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again."
Jared Morton
