No Place for the Squeamish

Meta Cranky has been in stricken with a GI ailment. Two days of the usual misery, interrupted only by Cranky #2's recitations from Fancy Nancy Tea Party. Just when MC was lulled to sleep by directions for making Raspberry Swirls, she'd be elbowed in the ribs to decipher some of Nancy's fancier creations ("How do you say "s-i-l-v-o-u-s-p-l-a-i-t?" "What does a-l-f-r-e-s-c-o spell?"). Take it from the Crankies: Fancy Nancy is a regular Florence Nightingale.

Enforced bedrest gives MC the opportunity to reflect on similar visitations, some self-inflicted, some not. A vicious bacteria in Cranky Sergeant's kitchen once took MC down for a solid three days. The unkindest hangovers, MC realized, pale in comparison to food poisoning served to you by your own mother. After days of being able to communicate only by blinking her eyelids, MC heard Second Older Brother enter Cranky Sergeant's house. "I came to view the body," he boomed, sympathetically.  MC, busy battling with toxins, was unmoved. Then older brother weighed in with a diagnosis: "This might be morning sickness--maybe she's pregnant!" Brother's hilarity was lost on the Sergeant, who could tell the diff between preggers and Staphylococcus. Before she lost consciousness, MC heard the Sergeant giving the orders: "OUT! Get OUT of the house." Second Brother, and his very sincere interest in MC's welfare, was summarily removed from the sickroom.

All GI dramas have their own narrative arc and particular plot complications. C2 had a five-day flu when she was still in diapers. Small Cranky's illness would have been worrisome since she was so small; it was amplified by her disinterest in the water substitute that would reliably stay on her stomach. Consequently, she pleaded for water like one of the dusty minions in Lawrence of Arabia. MC, lying in bed with small C2, watched these events unfold one thirsty morning like one of those rolling marble games where the ball gains momentum and, with increasing speed and precision, drops through holes and traps to reach its destination. The chronology was approximately this:

1) MC, in bed with C2,  hears the phone ring and Herr Cranky answer it.

2) C2 wakes up and begs for a drink of water.

3) Sympathetic C1 fills a glass for C2.

4) Herr Cranky, unaware of other events, hands MC the phone.

5) C1 gives her sister a glass of water.

6) C2 throws up on MC.

7) MC looks at the wreckage and speaks her first words of the day: "I'll have to call you back."

 There are a surprising number of similarities between having a two-day intestinal bug and going to a weekend spa. There's the whole cleansing purge thing. There's the "Mommy's Day Out" element: by being in bed for two days: no housework! no laundry! On the whole, then, it was like a Stay-cation, except for the being miserable part.

--MC