Pre-K-THXBYE.

So I'm p. much hyperventilating.

Because tomorrow Maya starts at the Cesspool school again. She'll be in Pre-K this year, not just preschool. Kid is grown' up. Sniff.

However. This only means one thing to me: We will all get sick within hours of her playing with blocks, coloring with pens, or sharing books at reading time. We will all come down with horrible cold and flu (and small baby tiny precious blonde blue-eyed God Jesus please help us not catch the dreaded stomach flu or the trots or Captain Trips or Rotavirus). And the best part of knowing that Maya and we will all get sick? Is that this shall continue twice a fortnight until the end of time.

If you recall, Maya went though her first day of school before, last September. I was proud of her, worried for her, and incredibly fucking scared of the germs. Oh and of my child being accosted and tortured. But mostly, I am ashamed to admit, the germs.

And then if you also remember, as expected, Maya promptly got sick like the dog in my entry entitled "Threat Level: Midnight."

It had been a new beginning, a new adventure, something for her to look forward to: Look, back then, at my kid all excited to be a groweds-up!! Going to gee-dee SCHOOL!!

BUT. See, Maya has been on what I like to call a "hiatus," taking a sabbatical if you will (pursuing her Ph.D in Play-Doh 101 and her masters in Dirt-Sculpture-Making for the Under Five Crowd, and learning in depth the philosophy behind how to play XBox's Harry Potter and Spelunky.

She was taken out of school, as of last Christmas because (1) she wasn't loving and appreciating school (a gentler way of phrasing her frothing split-pea-spewing beard-rending sackcloth-tearing fits whenever we woke her up at 7:30 am to go to school); (2) it was very pricey and we wanted to save money, especially on a school my kid didn't love; and (3) MOTHERFUCKING COLDS IN OUR MOTHERFUCKING NOSES EVERY MOTHERFUCKING WEEK.

It was just unreal. I couldn't take another second of it. The baby, who was only 4-5 months old at the time, was sick constantly, once for six weeks straight. And she was so new and so fragile and did not handle colds well, getting so congested that I literally thought she'd choke and die in the middle of the night. Silently. Once, on our way to a restaurant to enjoy a little family time, we skipped our plans for a meal and made a quick, last-miunte detour to the local ER because she was struggling so hard to breathe and it sounded like she was fighting to get any air in and was going to suffocate any minute. I was panicking every second of that 10-minute drive. Fuck. I don't know how many people get this, but the common cold can be scary shit.

And might I interject, that since removing Maya from school before Christmas, we have not caught one single solitary cold or flu. Not even a sniffle. Not even a throat tickle. Not one. Nothing. So it's all those filthy little bastards who do not know to wash their hand after the use the potty and who do not sneeze into their sleeve and who dig for gold up they got-damn noses and and then offer my child a bite of their Bunny-Grahams.

---

I like to think now at almost a year and a half years of age, the baby Naomi is stronger and heartier (God knows this child is build like a truck (or built like my one true love, Edgar Martinez)).

Thighs like what. what. what.

And Naomi is so strong and determined and hearty and wily and mischievous and just a ball of fire than I think she can fight off colds more easily, or deal with them more easily as them come. Well, part of me logically thinks so and the other part of me is screaming, "We will have a nicely lovely playdate with some favorite neighbors and enjoy some apple juice and Goldfish and then Naomi will chew on her playmate's Sophie the Giraffe and then catch a cold and will fill head to toe with mucous and die. Dead. Dead of rhinopharyngitis."

Sorry, you played with a kids' favorite rubber toy and now you shall die of dystentery. Fuck you, Sophie.

Or that Maya will have come home from a lovely day at school fingerpainting and baking cookies and playing telephone and cooking in the play kitchen and making macaroni art, and the she will breathe in the vicinity of the baby who will instantly perish.

Because every other time that Naomi has caught one of Maya's (trillions of) colds, she got incredibly sick and churned out snot the way the Amish churn out butter and caught horrible double ear infections and sinus infections like it was her job. Every time. So yeah. Who knows if the baby is stronger now or not. Time will tell.

But still. Maya is off hiatus, is beginning Pre-K tomorrow, and will be bringing home God only knows what kinds of diseases. I can't say I'm prepared for the Onslaught of Sick, but I know it's coming. I know it's coming. I'm trying to steel myself for the inevitable, but that doesn't mean I don't feel like taking two handfuls of Xanax, 27 Klonopin, and two bottles of our very best $3 red wine to try to soothe my worries.

Light a candle for me, child.

How to Bastardize Ratatouille. Bum-Bum Germs Stylee.

How to Cook Rattatoooeypie.

First, find an online ratatouille recipe that looks good. I found this here one. 2,000,000 reviews can't be wrong. Or 521. Bygones.

Shit, I messed up already. FIRST, be sure to watch Walt Disney's Ratatouille. So as 2 get in the mood. Find a chef's cap and a small disgusting rodent to place therein. THEN, find a good ratatouille recipe online. Like I says, I found this one.

Step one: Print it out. Step two: Tape it near your cooking area. Step three: Make sure not to follow any of it.

Then, coat a lovely glass pan with a fine fine garlic olive oil. Next, you wash all the vegetables. I said wash all the vegetables. WITH DISH SOAP.

Lather up that eggplant. Lather up those zucchinis. Yes, lather up that onion, even though you are going to take its skin off. You do not want to slice bum-bum germs straight into the sweet, firm white succulent sexy young flesh of an onion.

If you want to make sure you are on good terms with me, you will even wash the garlic. Then you peel that shit, mince that shit, and toss it in a pan of garlic olive oil. Then add in your clean, clean, fresh clean white onion. Sauté for a goodly bit. Then toss in some salt, pepper, parsley flakes, and oregano to taste. Sauté a bit more until that nonsense is translucent and delightfully rank.

Then, take your freshly scrubbed eggplant and peel. Cut, de-seed, scrape that shit out, do whatever you want to prepare your eggplant. Chop it into cubes, slices, trapezoids, I don't give a fuck. Toss with a bit more garlic olive oil.

Take your green pepper, yellow squash, and zucchini. If they have not been scrubbed to almost their very demise, throw everything away and start the fuck over: you obviously cannot follow directions. Begin again by WASHING THAT SHIT WITH SOAP. When you have reached this point again, with clean NON-  E.-coli vegetables this time, slice the green pepper, yellow squash, and zucchini into...slices. Mandolin stylee. All up in here.

If you happen to drop any stray vegetables on the floor, or God forbid the nasty nasty sink, DO NOT USE THAT PIECE REPEAT DO NOT USE THAT PIECE. This one went straight in the garbage:

DO NOT LET FILTHY VEG HAPPEN TO YOU.

Speaking of mushrooms....Now. Now comes the mushrooms. If you're like me, you'll go buy mushrooms, and then throw them promptly away, because mushrooms do not belong in food dishes. Ever. Except when you're feeling saucy. And today, I was feeling saucy. So you can either take your mushroom and do like Tenacious D and shove two of them up your ass, or throw them down the incinerator, or never buy them to begin with....or you can be bold and decide, "Mushrooms? Well why the fuck not. Even though they're groce."

But now comes the dilemma. Do you wash them, or not?

Now, if you google this issue, you'll get wildly varying opinions. Some swear you should never, ever, EVER wash fresh mushrooms, as it removes their delicious (???) flavor. Some say you should take a small firm brush and merely dust off the dirt, even if served raw.

Others say to perhaps take a cursory swipe of the shrooms with a damp cloth, and discard any gnarly stems. Other people? Other people in their right mind? Como yo? remind you that mushrooms are grown right in the motherfucking manure, yo. WASH THAT FUCKING SHIT WITH WATER. WASH IT. WASH IT.

So after you have washed your mushrooms to within an inch of their filthy lives, and possibly even swirled them about in soapy water, slice them. Do it.

Then glance at your recipe again, realize you've forgotten to sauté your eggplant first, scream "SCREW IT!" take a swig of any nearby wine, and go ahead and layer all your veggies. Extremely haphazardly. We're talking, ugly style. Throw that crap all about. No rhyme, no reason.

Stick a few chunks of eggplant here, three slices of green pepper there, and a handful of mushroom all in betwixt. Make sure it is as ugly as poss.

Then, drizzle about 400 calories of olive oil on top, add enough salt and pepper to raise your blood pressure to 160/100, and top with fairly thickly-sliced tomato. Which you surely have washed with dish soap. For to wash off all the hand germs, semen, fecal matter, dust, duck shit, salmonella, and sneeze.

Another "GOTCHA" to one of my favorite people, the Not So Special Mother Janice. :)

Once you have added those divine slices of tomato, add even more S&P. Because you only live once.

Then, top with your onion/garlic sauté mixture. ADD MORE S&P GODDAMMIT. I'm telling you.

Them top with great vast handfuls of shredded parmesan cheese.

(Make sure you have Clorox wipes directly visible in the background at all times.)

Finally, give another cursory glance at your recipe; realize you have done things completely fucking wrong, possibly due to the large amounts of Shiraz you've drunk; say a prayer to the Patron Saint of Pixar movies; and throw that motherfucker in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes. Result:

Tasty, toasty, melty, ugly, random, delicious, cheesy vegetable goodness.

For that Extra Wow Factor, add birthday candles.

Just kidding, don't.

I hope you enjoy your Ratatouille a la Bum-Bum Germs. Mine was spectacular.

Love,
Jo

Nice to Meet You, Offbeat Mama. I Think I'll Hold Off On Shaking Your Hand, Thanks So Much.

A few weeks ago, I read this entry by "offbeatmama." (Yeah, I'm a year and a half too late. Bygones.) I've been stewing over it since. What follows is my horrified reaction to her quotes.

She says:

"Yes, I'm trying to teach them to wash their hands after they pee, etc."

1. "Trying" to teach them to wash after peeing? Really. How hard is it to teach them? How is this an "effort"? Sorry to go all Yoda on  your bum-bum here, but there is no try, offbeatmama. You just fucking teach them. We wash before we eat. Period. We wash after playing in the dirt. Period. We wash after we use the bathroom. Period. How is this a difficult lesson to teach? Why do you have to keep "trying"? You observe that shit. You keep an eye on it. You make them wash. The end.

2. Now what exactly do you mean by "etc."? Like, how do you wrap up "oh and the rest of the things you need to wash your hands after" by "etc." Like, do you mean, "after they pee, and after they touch heaping steaaming piles of dog shit"? Or do you mean "after they pee, and after making mudpies"? Or do you mean, "after they pee, and before eating," like we were taught in kindergarten? How do you summarize your hygiene program with "etc."?

Next up:

"...because substances with names that have numbers and hyphens and are virtually unpronounceable do not belong in children."

Really? God forbid our children ingest substances with numbers, hyphens, or that are difficult to pronounce, like beta-carotene, B-12, or D-3, which are vitamins; or galacto-oligosaccharides, cytidine 5-monophosphate, disodium uridine 5-monophosphate, crypthecodiniium cohnii oil, pyridoxine hydrocloride, cyanocobalamin, or phylloquinone, which are ingredients in infants' formula; or Isoleucine, Threonine, Selenocysteine, or Pyrrolysine, which are amino acids.

"Hell, now that I've taken the time to write all of those ingredients down, I'm quite certain they don't even belong on my kid's asses."

I wish you'd taken as much time to Google them as you did writing them down. OH SNAP!

Case in point:

"I, for one, would rather my kids ingest a little park dirt (even dog poo tinged park dirt) than have them ingest say: Ethyl Alcohol, Isopropyl Alcohol, Carbomer, Tocopheryl Acetate, Glycerin, Propylene Glycol, Isopropyl Myrisate, which are the main ingredients in Purell. Or Propylene Glycol, Methylparaben, Propyl Paraben, Disodium Cocamphodiacetate, Polysorbate 20, and last but not least 2-Bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol, which are commonly found ingredients found in baby wipes....commonly found ingredients found in baby wipes."

And that is where you and I differ, offbeatmama. That is where you and I motherfucking differ. Sweet Jesus.

Let's break this shit down, shall we? I've taken the liberty of Googling almost all of the ingredients in hand sani or baby wipes that terrify you so.

Ethyl Alcohol is also known as pure alcohol or drinking alcohol. It evaporates after rubbing it onto your skin.

Polysorbate 20 is a nontoxic agent and is used as a wetting agent in mouth drops.

A carbomer is simply an expanded molecule. lol.

Tocopheryl acetate is also known as vitamin E acetate and is a common vitamin supplement.

Glycerin. Come on. Do I really have to fucking Google GLYCERIN for you? It's used in a billion foods and pharmaceuticals. COME ON.

Isopropyl Myrisate is safe and nontoxic and is used in certain mouthwashes.

2-Bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol, or Bronopol, is fairly ubiquitous in our diet and the environment, and is even produced within the stomach from various foodstuffs.

Methylparaben is produced naturally and found in several fruits, primarily blueberries, along with other parabens.

Propylparaben, as mentioned above, occurs as a natural substance found in many plants and some insects.

..."etc." Snort.

Next time, you can g'head and Google these yourself instead of just letting the big words scare you.

Another quote:

"I'll take my chances with the dirt and grime and grossness from nature (and, I will admit somewhat sheepishly, from my house), thank you very much."

Nature? Oh boy. You're probably one of those people who freaks out that OMFG ascorbic acid is in some of our foods, aren't you?

Another favorite quote:

"Call me crazy, but I'm feeding my kids dirt and pond scum and yes, even dog poop, before I'm feeding them 2-Bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol."

OK! OMG! Crazy! CRAZY CRAZYCRAZYCRAZYCRAZYCRAZYCRAZY!!!!

And one of the quotes that had me shaking my head the hardest:

"I also feel compelled to admit that I (and consequently my children) are lackadaisical hand washers."

WTF? Who so lackadaisically admits that they are lackadaisical handwashers? It's just so...I mean, at least pretend. For fuck's sake, at least pretend you wash your got-damn hands after you touch your bum-bum. Or don't admit to thousands of people that you don't.

offbeatmama,

A germy affair, indeed.

Aaaaannnnnd with that, I'm off to go let my child eat a handful of dog-poo-tinged dirt wipe my kid's ass with some Propylene Glycol, Methylparaben, and Propyl Paraben.




(Next up: My reaction to some of her commenters. Hooooo boy.)

Pediculus Humanus Capitis. *scritch scritch scritch*

OK. So. Lice.

I think the first time we got lice--and you know this is gonna be a good story if it starts with "and the FIRST time we got [a plague]"--was when I was about seven and I went to after-school daycare at the Young Men's Christian Association.

We suddenly had a mandatory "lice check" one day, and lo and frickin behold, I "tested positive." I was stunned. Lice? What? Me? I got sent home. We treated the situation the best we could. It was all new to us, but my poor single mother dealt with it in between working 8 billion jobs and shit.

I remember that the YMCA had a couple more random checks as well, and I got sent home another time too. Talk about humiliation. You go into the nurse's office and you don't return. HMMM. WONDER WHY. WHERE'S JO? LICE MUCH?

When I caught The Lice (and I will forever blame this one girl Gwen and her licey ways), my family did everything that we should have done. We repeatedly shampooed our hair with Rid, we sprayed the carseats, the hairbrushes, and combs, we froze the cloze, we bugbombed the house while we stayed in a Travelodge motel (forever after referred to as The Lice Motel). But if you recall, our house was the Pit of Despair, and we had clothes and laundry and mess and junk and crap and bullshit everywhere; i.e., plenty of places for those crafty lice to hide.

At some point, through heroic efforts, we kept the lice at bay, but only temporarily. It seemed a battle we were always...er, battling.

The next major lice war I remember, it was when I was in 5th grade. I had newly discovered boys, a certain boy in particular. I was in love with one Mitchell Marchant. Love, I tell you. Young young love.

I had also discovered the phone. (This was before my phone phobia.) I was on the phone all the time with Mitchell. I would hide in my mom's room for some semblance of privacy, since that was the farthest that the phone cord would stretch. This was before cordless phones, child, and long, long, long before cell phones. We would talk until the wee hours. And by that I mean 8 pm.

Well, one day at school, the nurse was doing her rounds, and it was time for one of her mandatory lice checks. Got-damn those mandatory lice checks. One by one, she took everyone into the back of the room and carefully combed through their hair with a pick and a magnifying glass.

My turn came.

LICE!! FUUUUUUUUUCK!!!

I was sent home in the middle of the school day. I was mortified. Because that only meant one thing. And worse, Mitchell knew it only meant one thing: His 5th grade telephone girlfriend had lice.

Well, my family did the old routine lice treatment: shampoo, spray, bugbomb, Lice Motel. Rinse, repeat. RINSE, REPEAT. After a few bouts of it, we were done. Again.

Then came 7th grade. And gym class. After (sooooo not) sweating it up during gym, all the girls wanted to share my awesome Sassy hairbrush, since I was the only one who ever thought to bring one. I obliged, wanting desperately to be cool. And like Gwen in those YMCA days of yore, Megan Hughes proved to be my downfall. One day, I noticed how good it felt to deeply brush my hair. I kept brushing. And brushing. Scratching, if you will. And the next day, Megan Fucking Hughes was sent home with lice. And guess who had shared my brush the week before, in gym class? Megan F. Hughes.

That day I went home and looked at my scalp up-close-like in the vanity mirror.

Wham. Lice.

SHITBALLS AND A HALF.  Would it ever end? Fuck you forever, Megan Fucking Hughes.

And this was particularly bad timing. My brother was being baptized that very night. We had found out like two hours before that we had lice. That's right, he was about to become a CHILD OF GOD and here I was, realizing we had a PARASITE OF SATAN on our very scalps. And I was the one who had to tell him. I have to say, he took the news graciously. You can't very well accept the bread of life and the salvation of God and the peace of the Lord and then flip the fuck out on your little sister for catching lice for the 84936584378th time. We treated our hair, prayed to the Patron Saint of Bloodsuckers that headlice couldn't be transmitted via baptismal font, and hoped that we were done with this shit.

Thank you sweet tiny God, we were.

It never happened again.


Finally, victory. Headlice? GTFO!!

Anyway, it may have taken 84936584378 times, but it was at this moment at the age of 12 that a phobia was born. From this point on out, every request to borrow my hairbrush was denied. DE-MOTHERFUCKING-NIED.

People hated and resented me because of it. I was a veritable gym class pariah. It was mortifying at such a tender age. But I stood my ground and said no, you may NOT borrow my hairbrush. I was as afraid of lice as I was of someone vomiting. If I saw someone scratch their head, I was instantly on red alert. But because of that, we never caught lice again.

But that doesn't mean I am not still paranoid to within an inch of my life, especially now that Maya's in school.

And no. You may not borrow my hairbrush, EVER.



I leave you with this:

THE BOLT INCIDENT.

One fine day, years and years ago, my mother and I set out to have lunch at the Olive Garden. Pure class, I know. But come on, their breadsticks. Delicious.

So I ordered my favorite meal, the Capellini Pomodoro. When it arrived, I took my fork in hand and gave the pasta a nice stir. Suddenly, a bolt appeared before me. I repeat. A BOLT. A fuck. ing. bolt.

The second I saw it, I stood up and backed away in surprise, nearly toppling my chair. I was stunned beyond belief. A bolt. I mean, of all the unsavory things you have heard of finding in food--hairs, bugs, bandaids--but a metal bolt?

I called the waiter over, explaining the situash, and he said he'd talk to the manager.  I expected the manager to rush over on bended knee (though that would be logistically difficult), pleading for my forgiveness, and basically offer me his firstborn. Instead, the manager strolled over to me and the first words out his mouth were, "I'm sorry, but we have no bolts like that of any kind anywhere in our kitchen."

...So, you see, effectively blaming ME for putting the bolt in my food. As if I had been attempting to score a free meal out of it all.

Now, again, let me say. If one wanted a free meal, what might one sneak into their Capellini Pomodoro? A beetle? A short, suspiciously wiry hair? A peanut, claiming deathly allergies? WAIT NO, HAI I KNOW, A FUCKING THREE-INCH-LONG METAL FUCKING BOLT. That's the ticket. That's what I'll slip into my meal. It's foolproof!! It's genius! I'm a fucking wizard!

So yeah, the manager was basically calling me a liar. I did get a free replacement bowl of Cap/Pom out of it, but God only knows what they secretly put in it the second time around. I said a prayer to the Patron Saint of Disgruntled Food Workers and ate my new & improved 100% bolt-free pasta.

But you better believe that I Wrote a Letter. Because I Write Letters. When I experience a great injustice, I write letters, and I GET RESPONSES. I am the queen of writing letters. (Por ejemplo, I got $1,100 out of Fred Meyer once for ruining a roll of film I took in to be developed. I am That Good.)

Anyway, after writing my letter, and receiving a personal call from the Head Honcho of the O.G. herself, I think I could have eaten free for a week there because of how many vouchers I got. She was astonished at my tale of being served Capellini al Bolt, and was covering her ass truly apologetic.

And since then, I have bravely dined at the Olive Garden other times. I've come to expect certain atrocities: chicken that tastes bafflingly like sausage; salad that is soggy 10 out of every 10 times; lipstick on the water glasses; etc. But at least I've found no more metal equipment or tools of any sort in my mediocre Italian cuisine.

Oh, and if you ever need a letter of complaint written for you, that will be ten (10) American U.S. dollars, please.

The One About the "Various Other Nasty Phobias."

So, in addition to everything else I have going for me, I'm also a bit of an emetophobe.

It all began in 4th grade. My teacher was Mrs. Lang. I had just begun wearing a training bra, yea though any actual chesticles were years away from blossoming. My best friend was Holly Wolf. My crush was Luke Krupski. I was obsessed with ALF. I even had the ALF phone.

We were in the middle of a grade school reconstruction, so we were temporarily residing at a school called Aldercrest.

(Holy crap! I even found a picture of that very school, even though it no longer exists:)

That year began with a bang. I remember how we'd all wait outside the school, on the cement pavement in a covered area, and wait for the teachers to let us in.

I remember reading Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, and Ramona Quimby, Age 8.





And most of all, I remember everyone fucking puking on their desks or all over the floor.

Luke Krupski was the first to go. I'll never forget the day he ralphed all over Mrs. Lang's 4th grade classroom. I had loved that boy, ohhh did I ever, until I saw his neon purple puke all over the linoleum.

Kim Stewart was next. She upchucked during a math test.

The next day it was Keri Forester's turn. Puke-o-Rama. Barf-Fest 1987. Hurl to the Max. Literally, like, gag me with a spoon.

And so it went. Bout after bout of stomach flu overtook us all. The poor, dejected janitor and his yellow bucket and mop were in there so often we knew him by his first name. Also probably because his name-tag read "Hello, my name is Carl." Bygones.

And then before I knew it, it was my turn.

I got up during silent reading and told Mrs. Lang I felt sick. She said, "Go sit at your desk and rest, put your head down, just wait awhile to see if you feel better." I dutifully obliged, while feeling positively miserable. Only two minutes later, Mrs. Lang came to me and said, "You look really pale. Why don't you go to the nurse's office."

It all turned to slow motion. It really did. I remember every milisecond of it. I stood, slowly, so slowly, to extricate myself from my desk. And mid-extrication, suddenly, that undeniable urge. That unforgettable mouth-watery throat-tickly stomach-gurgly "I'mona hurl" moment. OHH SHIIIIIIII....

And I barfed. I barfed all over my desk. Right there in the middle of 4th grade, as all my classmates looked on.

I'll never forget as Mrs. Lang told poor Kim Stewart to deal with my puke (by putting a sheet of paper towel down over it) before Carl the Janitor got called in (for like the 48th time that day). I wondered what poor Kim had done to deserve that. I'll never forget the look of my vomit covered by a thin paper towel. And then Ashley Proctor escorted me to the nurse's office, where I laid feverishly under a beige wool blanket, waiting for my mom to arrive, every so often rising to throw up in the nurse's bathroom.

That stomach flu was a doozy. I have never felt so sick to my stomach in all my life. And while I was home sick all week, I remember lying in bed re-reading Ramona Quimby, Age 8, and barfing several times throughout, especially because Ramona herself gets the stomach flu in that book, and there is talk about fruitflies, and jars of blue oatmeal, and retching. "Go away, blue oatmeal," became Ramona's, and my, mantra.

Please. Go away, blue oatmeal.

I threw up in my bed so many times I'm surprised my mom didn't make me sleep in the bathtub. I mean, she brought me the Barf-Bucket(TM) and everything, but I always managed to ralph all over my bed, necessitating an entire change of sheets and blankets, and a bath for me. Once when all the bedclothes were dirty, she put me inside my brand-new splatter-paint design sleeping bag on my bed. I'll never forget that sleeping bag. It was so rad. It was so totally tubular. It was so fucking 1987.

It was a lot like this, but on an aqua background:

Anyway, I barfed in that fucker too. So guess what my mom did? Just threw it out. I think I would too.

After this flu, the worst of my life, I was incredibly obsessed with throwing up. If any of my friends happened to mention that they were feeling sick, I'd panic, back away, and ask in sheer terror, "ARE YOU GOING TO THROW UP!?" I was truly afraid they'd throw up. Afraid! Sore afraid.

And every time I felt nauseated, I'd say a prayer to the Patron Saint of Puke that I could hold it down.

This fear lasted for years. I'm not quite sure when it ended...maybe about the time our cat Opie spewed 4-1/2 feet of vomit down our hallway and there was no choice but to clean it up. My husband and I had just come home from a fancy Christmas party, and there we were, dressed to the nines, I in my fancy red party dress and sparkly jewels, cleaning up cat comet-vomit, laughing our respective bum-bums off. Because what else could we do but laugh? I mean, FOUR AND A HALF FEET OF PUKE.

PS: He got us good another time, with about twelve feet of puke that even rounded a corner, but we did not get photographic evidence of that. But take my word for it. Twelve feet.

So anyway. I guess I grew out of my emetophobia, for the most part.

Until my new fear arose and took its place:

Lice.