That is exactly how the summer wound up.
So far as family reunions go, this one had been a lot of fun. It
could have been far worse, this was the half of the in-paw family that I
had not met yet. The part I had gotten to know, well, let's just say
that our relationship hasn't been any better since they moved to the
West coast and we moved to the East coast.
At any rate, meeting the other half of the wife's family, at least the prospect of it, had been extremely stressful, up to the point of actually meeting them. Leaving the event had been a sad thing. We tried to counter the sad with fun things along the trip home. Take three, maybe four days to drive from Wisconsin to Maryland and enjoy some sights along the way. That was the plan, at least. Nowhere in the plan was it written that anyone would get sick.
"Mom," came our younger son's little voice, "I don't feel good." When a 10 year old boy who had, up until that statement, been happily sucking down cherry slurpy type drink in a van says something like that you have to realize that there is one viable option. If you are driving, you must immediately cut across however many lanes of traffic there are between you and the widest shoulder, come to a screeching halt, undo your seat belt, climb to the middle row seat, to the child in the middle, unbuckle him, get him out of the van and onto the side of the shoulder nearest the grassy area. All in about a second. Other drivers be damned, they will recover; you, however, are sitting on a time bomb that is about to blow up.
24 ounces of cherry slurp went in, some 15 gallons of red stained, stinking, sticky, cheesy-clumped, unidentifiable, semi-plasticized; polymer-esque, partial liquid, watery, gelatinous, mucous streaked substance is about to erupt from that darling boy. Heaven have mercy on ya if you didn't hear him, because that plaintive little plea was your one and only warning.
That one second gone, it has ticked away, be you driving or in one of the other passengers in that vehicle there is something unidentifiable that brings your eyes to that one face. At that one moment, the instant that it happens. Oh boy, does it happen, when it does, it goes in slow motion at first and then picks up speed.
Whoever is driving, Mom or Dad, is inevitably going to say something like, "What is that smell?" or "Oh, God, are you alright?" as if that sweet innocent, 10 year old child who is puking all over the seat, and sibling sitting in front of him, is going to stop puking to say something poignant like, "I am quite fine, Mother, just warming up for our stop at the Vomitorium."
Before the adult passenger can blink, and the other children in the van can inhale to scream a second time, the can is at its required place on the shoulder and half of everything in it is on the roadside ... getting washed by hand and water bottle ... that was the start of would would became a five day ordeal in which all seven of us would have to stomach this virus.
At any rate, meeting the other half of the wife's family, at least the prospect of it, had been extremely stressful, up to the point of actually meeting them. Leaving the event had been a sad thing. We tried to counter the sad with fun things along the trip home. Take three, maybe four days to drive from Wisconsin to Maryland and enjoy some sights along the way. That was the plan, at least. Nowhere in the plan was it written that anyone would get sick.
"Mom," came our younger son's little voice, "I don't feel good." When a 10 year old boy who had, up until that statement, been happily sucking down cherry slurpy type drink in a van says something like that you have to realize that there is one viable option. If you are driving, you must immediately cut across however many lanes of traffic there are between you and the widest shoulder, come to a screeching halt, undo your seat belt, climb to the middle row seat, to the child in the middle, unbuckle him, get him out of the van and onto the side of the shoulder nearest the grassy area. All in about a second. Other drivers be damned, they will recover; you, however, are sitting on a time bomb that is about to blow up.
24 ounces of cherry slurp went in, some 15 gallons of red stained, stinking, sticky, cheesy-clumped, unidentifiable, semi-plasticized; polymer-esque, partial liquid, watery, gelatinous, mucous streaked substance is about to erupt from that darling boy. Heaven have mercy on ya if you didn't hear him, because that plaintive little plea was your one and only warning.
That one second gone, it has ticked away, be you driving or in one of the other passengers in that vehicle there is something unidentifiable that brings your eyes to that one face. At that one moment, the instant that it happens. Oh boy, does it happen, when it does, it goes in slow motion at first and then picks up speed.
Whoever is driving, Mom or Dad, is inevitably going to say something like, "What is that smell?" or "Oh, God, are you alright?" as if that sweet innocent, 10 year old child who is puking all over the seat, and sibling sitting in front of him, is going to stop puking to say something poignant like, "I am quite fine, Mother, just warming up for our stop at the Vomitorium."
Before the adult passenger can blink, and the other children in the van can inhale to scream a second time, the can is at its required place on the shoulder and half of everything in it is on the roadside ... getting washed by hand and water bottle ... that was the start of would would became a five day ordeal in which all seven of us would have to stomach this virus.
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