One frustrating day

Wow, we had a great weekend. It felt long, I did a lot of fun things, hung out with quite a few friends... good times.

Watchmen was great, btw. And how 'bout those Jayhawks? Five Big 12 championships in a row. Impressive.

The house is even clean, and my laundry is semi-done. It's just a lovefest over here, people!

Now that things are going well, I can reflect on a really rough day a little better now, and laugh about it.

It was... three Saturdays ago? It was while Ramon was in the hospital.

We were all stressed. Evey was still a little sick, but I had pretty much declared her "better." We were spending lots of time in the hospital. Our house was in total disarray, just from not being there much. Every meal was eaten at the hospital or at a burger place. Things I'm used to doing, like working on my computer, playing basketball, cooking dinner, was all shelved for the time being. We were basically living in a lobby area on the 2nd floor of the hospital, and as anyone knows, that's not fun.

We took a break at home this Saturday and then went to the hospital. The usual crowd was gone -- they had all gone to dinner together, and we missed the bus. But that may have been a blessing in disguise, I thought, as I'd finally get to spend some quality time with my two favorite girls in the world, Adro and Evey.

We drove over to Applebee's on 6th St. Some college kid was our waiter. Evey wanted to sit next to dad, so I had her in the booster chair next to me. We had one of those booths along the West wall. I was ready for some decent food (LMH food is actually pretty decent, it just has that stigma of being hospital food.)

The waiter delivers my cheeseburger, Adro's meal, and Evey grilled cheese. Everything looked perfect. We were, momentarily, back to normal. Peace on earth, let your worries pass you by.

And then Adro muttered these fateful words: "Evey looks... funny."

I had just taken the inaugural bite from this cheeseburger, which may have been the best cheeseburger ever -- we'll never truly know it's full potential. I looked down at Evey in time to see her open her mouth... and begin to disgorge herself of two day's worth of food.

I don't know why, but my reflexes tell me: "catch the vomit!" I don't know why. I usually can't catch too much of it before my hands are overwhelmed. In the future, I think I'm going to try to tell myself to "sacrifice the grilled cheese basket!" It's going to get ruined anyway. But that first thought? So far it's had me using my hands, rather than simple tools. See how far behind I am on the evolutionary ladder?

So I'm shoveling vomit onto the table as fast as I can. We've got full technicolor... there's the swampy stuff. There's the beans (my daughter loves beans. She's Mexican.) There's green beans. When did she have green beans? Two days ago? Yeesh. Oh, and there's the fruit snacks I gave her ten minutes ago. That's a slap in the face. They're like the cherry on top, nice runny bright blobs swimming in a pool of disgust. Yellow, red, green, blue.

I grab Evey and run her into the men's room. Thankfully she had an undershirt on that day, so I just peeled off the top shirt. Some guy walks in, makes a joke. Then he sees the vomit flakes that are shedding from the both of us. "Oooh... one of those days," he laughs. Just leave me alone, dude, I'm thinking to myself.

I do the best job I can getting us sanitized, but who am I kidding? I'm a dad, not a mom. I do a Reader's Digest version of cleaning her up. We can rub some dirt on the rest. We just need to get home, I figure.

I get back to the table. Adrianne is doing her best to clean up the mess. The 18-year-old waiter has gone in hiding. We stop one of his co-workers, some unsuspecting young girl. "We need boxes. And a trash can."

The boxes arrive quickly. They want us gone, apparently.

The trash can is harder to come by. Finally, it arrives. It's a small wastebasket... overfilling with trash. Apparently the kids didn't realize our predicament.

Adrianne goes beyond the call of duty on cleaning this mess. I had that job when I was a kid, I cleaned up other people's messes for years, it got me through college! But Adro is sympathetic, and is cleaning this place up RIGHT. Then she tells me I need to leave the kid a good tip.

Leave him a good tip? The kid who disappeared at the first sign of vomit? He is not a waiter, he is a COWARD.

So, yeah... I left him a good tip.

We get in the car. Adro makes a quick phone call to her mom to let her know we won't be making it back to the hospital due to Evey's volcanic stomach. We're rumbling down 6th Street, a green cloud wafting from the car.

I volunteer to leave the voicemail, as Adro doesn't like to drive/talk on the cell. I grab it from her. "Judy, vomit, tomorrow, bye." Something like that. I don't remember the details.

I hand the phone back to Adro. And then she utters her second fateful phrase of the night. "Ugh, now my phone smells like vomit."

This is the moment in the movie where the screen goes red, I start flipping over tables, I scream towards the heavens and rip off my shirt. Six days of worrying about Papoo, hanging out in the hospital, then add in a sick kid, stress at work, a faltering economy, New Coke, global warming, season three of "Rock of Love," an achy back, blurry vision, Chinese Democracy, my disappearing three-point shot...

OK, I didn't really shout, or do anything at all. But I think Adro could sense the glow from the back seat. "I mean... uhm... I love you!" she says.

We got home, cleaned up Evey, then went to bed. I felt totally defeated.

But now, I look back at it, and I realize: I'm still alive. I'm here. My life is back to normal. My girls, my family, they all love me.

I'm glad I can look back on it now and laugh. Whew... that was one frustrating day.