Bodily Functions

This entry is dedicated to my sister, Emily, who is the only one I know who fully appreciates the unique and colorful ways that the body functions.

Just when I started to think I had won a free pass out of the dark side of the winter/cold season, life smirked and said, "just kidding." It all started on Friday. I was standing in line at the Lorraine H. Morton Civic center in Evanston, Illinois waiting to hand the cashier a check for $12.00 so I could purchase my daughter’s birth certificate. At first I thought it was just the way a government office building can make you feel. I had to stand in line at the Office of Vital Records and fill out paper work requesting the certificate. Then I had to go to the Cashier’s Office to pay for the certificate. Then I had to return to the Office of Vital Records (by way of a warm 4x4 elevator—which, I decided on the spot, if I was ever going to be stuck in an elevator, this one would be the WORST ONE EVER TO BE STUCK IN). Claustrophobia was a mean girl and she had her hands around my neck. Ela gained at least another roll of fat since I walked into the building and the travel Graco car seat was hanging on the radius bone of my arm (which promised to crack if one more person cut in front of me in line) and of course, as all babies do when standing in long lines at government offices, my baby, who rarely cries, was screaming.

As soon as I had obtained legal documentation proving that I had pushed a baby out of my own vagina, I ran outside to breathe in some cold fresh air. Instead of sweet relief, I suddenly realized that Old Man Winter had come and turned the tables on me. I thought I was so above it this year, so acclimated, that time was just going to flying into spring. But no, the concrete underneath my feet was bristling and ugly, aching and screaming out for warmth or fresh snow, or something, “Don’t just leave me here to die in this God forsaken tundra!!!!! Nooooooooooo!”

I slam my car door. It’s too much. It’s almost 2 p.m. and I realize I haven’t eaten lunch yet. So I type P A N E R A into my Garmin and hope that some food will make things all better. I order my favorite food: the turkey avocado sandwich, a bowl of claim chowder, and a tall green iced tea. The restaurant had shrunk since the last time I was there. I must have knocked out half a dozen customers with either Ela’s car seat or the diaper bag depending on what shoulder they hit first. I found the tiniest table in a corner which I quickly filled up and over shared my space with a cute college girl in green boots and tights who blew bubbles with her gum as she flipped through magazine pages.

There was no other place to do it, so I whipped out breast A (under my paisley nursing cover), the one that was two cup sizes larger than breast B at the moment, and was ready to explode a gallon’s worth of mother’s milk like a concealed bomb going off in the middle of Panera. Thankfully, Ela decided to eat instead.

I try a bit of my sandwich, but the turkey juice that’s dripping on Ela’s head reminds me of the water that you soak your dirty dishes in for two days before you can get to them. And the soup tastes like they added a special ingredient: glass shards. I down the green tea and leave the food. But then my stomach becomes an angry ocean and I’ve got another bomb inside me—only this one has to explode in a public restroom of all places. Thankfully no one came in and they just happened to have the baby changer in the big bathroom stall so I could secure Ela while I did the deed of horror. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!) I NEVER poop in public. EVER. But there was no stopping the torrent. I was either going to do it here or in my jeans. I had to choose. I had hoped that this would be the end of it. And come to think of it, didn’t I did eat a whole lot of Mexican food last night? After breaking my most sacred rule of public etiquette, I ran out of there as fast as I could. But that’s when I knew that this was definitely not over.

My first impulse was to throw up on the welcome mat heralding the front door of Panera. But I liked Panera too much to do that to them and I didn’t want to ruin their business for the rest of the afternoon. Woozy and drunk-like I scanned the corner of Sherman and Church Street. Should I just throw up in that trash can? Or the sewer? Or maybe that back ally? I decided to run to my car, put Ela in the backseat and shield the crowd on the sidewalk from my moment of glory with my open car door. I threw up every last ounce of green tea along with a few chunks of turkey, a spoonful of chowder glass shards, and a bite of bread. It all splashed onto my parking space that I had paid a good seventy five cents for and the meter still had thirty minutes on it. I wish I could have told the grey Honda van that stopped traffic and waited patiently for my space with its yellow blinker flashing to just go ahead and move on. But there’s only so much non-verbal communication one can do when you have a slimly string of turkey chunks dripping from your chin.

I called David to let him know that I was sick. He has the great idea that I should drive out to his work and pick him up so he can take care of me and Ela for the rest of the day. That drive proved to be the biggest feat of my life. Worse than labor breathing, try not-trying-to-throw-up-breathing while you’re driving on the interstate at 55 mph. I pulled out every good mind control trick I knew. I thought my way into sunny Californian beaches, crisp clean bed sheets that smelled like summer, and the space between Edward Cullen’s two lips. I reminded myself that all thoughts are physical manifestations so I think I feel great, I think I don’t feel like throwing up all over my steering wheel. I think I don’t feel like scrubbing mucousy green tea out of my floor mats. All my Jedi tricks worked until I picked up David and they continued to work until we were almost home. Wouldn’t you know I lost the fight on the busiest street that feeds into our town? I reached for the paper cup that was already stuffed full of napkins. David cranked the steering wheel to the right and stopped the car at the most perfect angle so that everyone driving into Lake Forest can see me open up my car door and hurl right there in front of all those big beautiful houses on Suffolk Lane.

I decided to ditch the force and give in to this virus sith which caused me to retch for the next ten hours straight. If life had a fast forward button, I would have definitely used it here.

For the next three weeks, someone in our house is sick at any given moment. (And maybe here too.)

We live in a house that’s over one hundred years old, and one of the few annoying things about the house is the original wood flooring upstairs. The strips are a good five inches wide and the space between each floor board can be as big as a whole half inch. Sweeping is a waste of time. Everything just goes into those deep cracks and once it’s it, it never comes back out again.

Of course, when Ian gets sick, he doesn’t quite make it to the bathroom. I awake in the middle of the night, blind as lady justice without my thick glasses or contacts on, to find a little fuzzy figure standing at the foot of my bed.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” I ask David as I pat the surface of my nightstand in search of my glasses.

“Ian just threw up. Everywhere,” he says.

For a moment I stopped looking for my glasses and retreat back under the sheets to find my super mommy strength. The vindictive part of me was secretly happy that Ian was sick. Earlier that day he called me a “stupid idiot” and said he was ready to go live with a different family. I wanted to savor the moment. So, you need your stupid idiot mommy now, huh? But I found my better self somewhere in the covers and came out a slightly more empathetic and ready to clean up the mess with my super mommy powers intact.

But this is the memory I need to forget. As I’m scooping up the half pound of…what? Onions? Red peppers? Well, whatever it was, it was soaking through the pathetically thin pieces of one ply toilet paper tissue that I was holding in my bare hands. Going green has certain down sides like: we never buy paper towels. And wouldn’t you know it, all those little chunks of mystery vomit slipped away into those nasty floorboard cracks, unreachable for all of eternity! Not only in my bedroom, but Ian had also thrown up all over his bedroom as well. So I just decided to spray it all down with my all natural cleaning solution: which was aptly named, What-EVER!