How to Be Sick*

The first barf of March happened last week when I was asleep. It was around midnight, and I’d woken up groggy after detecting rustling and low voices outside the bedroom door. To avoid waking all the way, I shut my eyes again hoping the burglar would more quietly load the flat screens in his truck, but it quickly became clear the sounds were coming from people I knew, namely Booger and The Rock. (Why I didn’t notice my husband wasn’t sleeping next to me when I imagined a burglar downstairs, I have no idea. I just wanted them both to shut up so I could sleep.)

 

Even after I eventually recognized my daughter and husband’s voices, I tried to ignore them. I’m no good at midnight and certainly in no state to traipse around the house to see if everything is in order. The sounds continued however, and now lights were being turned on and holy crap, family, I’m off duty.

 

I stayed in bed another ten minutes or so and finally tossed the covers off to see what the hell.

 

I walked to the kids’ bathroom where the noise originated to find my beleaguered husband sitting on the edge of the tub with his head in his hands and a wet towel on his lap. Booger lay slumped nearby. “She puked everywhere,” my husband mumbled. “All over the bathroom.” Booger could only whimper in reply.

 

I surveyed the bathroom floor, the towel, and my daughter. “OK,” I said. And returned to bed.

 

I’m truly no good with barf or bodily fluid cleanup. (My home contributions largely come from coordinating taco night and Target birthday runs.)

 

But in all seriousity, no thank you to midnight pukes all over the place.

 

And I knew what it meant: we all were going down with the same virus and I better rest up. My time to clean up all the barf would come, it would come.

 

Sure enough, Booger needed to stay home for the next several days. I took off work Wednesday and Thursday to watch her, and came down with a mutant variety of her illness that settled in my head and felt like my brain was having a heart attack.

 

I once thought being sick meant staying in bed, taking Cosmo quizzes, watching dumb TV, and sucking on popsicles. Now, I don’t even know how to be sick. These days staying home to recover means compulsively checking my corporate email account so I don’t appear to be slacking, catching up on busy work like 18 loads of laundry soiled by stomach-acid-encased spaghetti noodles, and shopping for clear Pedialyte.

 

Eventually, I reached some sort of trying-to-do-everything-while-I’m-sick event horizon and plopped into bed to do nothing stuff like watch Brandi Glanville avoid responsibility for everything.

 

What I’m trying to say is I have some great Netflix recommendations because Booger eventually recovered and I could be sick properly. Stay tuned until tomorrow!

 

*I hope you didn’t read this for actionable “how-to-be-sick” answers because, brain fever. But here’s a parable takeaway: She who avoids puke clean-up responsibility is doomed to repeat it.