The Creature from the Porcelain Lagoon

Sometimes the planets align just perfectly, all things fall into place and the gods smile upon us. Like when the hometown team goes undefeated. Or if you put your money in the candy machine, it gives you your Snickers bar and then the coin return clinks and gives you your money back. Those good karma paybacks are sweet.
This past weekend, for the entire Dodge City Pyle family, was nothing like that. The stomach flu came to visit and this house guest came in like Clint Eastwood with a toothache. My family has been visited by illness before, but never have all five of us fallen at the same time, this hard.
As is often the case with something this insidious it started with the smallest target. Nine-year-old George was enjoying a Friday off from school at a friend’s house being rambunctious and child-like. One minute the scene is something Norman Rockwell would have painted for the Saturday Evening Post and the next minute George is running for the bathroom looking like something from one of those Alien movies. From bucolic to bubonic in nothing flat.
George was one sick little guy. Actually, he was creating enough (ahem) output to be three or four sick little guys. Claudia, my wife, commented that there was no way the rest of us would escape the same fate. To her it was like a bad horror movie. You know the kind, where it is not a question of if, but, when each character will be struck down by the masked psychopath (who was just mistreated in his childhood otherwise he would have grown up just fine, maybe even run a major corporation, but since his mother was a little picky about his behavior and locked him in a closet with seven or eight feral cats every time he would do just the slightest little thing, like set the mailman on fire, he grew up with a short temper and an affinity for the Husqvarna 450 chainsaw with its reduced exhaust engine meaning he could terrorize small towns yet still be environmentally friendly). I tried to think positive.
I was still thinking positively as I sat on the edge of the bed staring at the luminous numbers flip from 2:21 AM to 2:22 AM. I was concentrating so very hard on thinking positively because if I did anything other than think positively I was positively going to throw up. Before the clock could go to 2:23 AM I was gone to the bathroom.
Daughter number 1, Emilyjane was victim number 3 and daughter number 2, Alice was victim number 4. Other than the obvious symptoms aching heads, aching muscles and running to the bathroom every fifteen or twenty minutes we knew they we genuinely sick because they were sharing the same bed (in order to watch videos) for more than twenty minutes without any cries of “She took my pillow.” “Hey, get your foot off my side.” Or the ever popular, “She’s touching me!”
Sidebar: today’s entertainment technology makes the diversions whilst being sick much better. When I was sick as a kid I was stuck with soap operas, game shows, and The Mike Douglas Show. Now with DVDs my kids can watch things of their own choosing. If I wasn’t still weak I’d say, “No fair!”
Claudia was the quintessential caring mother. She felt unwell, but she kept going. She went to the store and lay in supplies: chicken noodle soup and gelatin snacks. (Things you only eat after a stomach illness or insulting guys named Snake.) She made sure everyone was warm enough, paying no attention to the fact the room seemed to lurch from time to time. She fetched anything desired for the convalescing foursome, disregarding personal discomfort. Then when the worst of it seemed to have passed for us, she went down and she went down hard, eleven hours of bathroom visits for the worst possible reason.
Even at the risk of being indelicate I wish to share something I learned during this experience. Everyone has their own personal style when it comes to the reverse peristalsis process. George was the best if one was measuring for distance or force. Emilyjane utilized some of her singing talents to give good vocalization. Alice was the most polite, but residual effects had her burping like a longshoreman after Oktoberfest. Claudia made pathetic sounds and apologized a lot. What about me you ask? I maintained my usual dignity and savoir faire during the actual act, but afterwards I could be found in a fetal position whimpering like a puppy during a thunderstorm.