Dances with Dysentery

March 28, 2006

I’ve been sick the past few days. Just a cold, nothing too serious — but last night, things took a turn for the worse.

By which I mean ‘gross’. But I’ll do my best not to offend anyone, save possibly the performers in a particular off-Broadway show. We’ll get to that.

Anyway, last night I was snoozing blissfully away, when I was awakened from my NyQuil-induced coma. By a stomach ache. A real gurgler, too. To that point, my illness had displayed no gastrointestinal symptoms; it was a garden-variety sniffles ‘n’ sore throat kind of thing. Rather pedestrian as sicknesses go, really. But that was going to change very quickly.

Sensing that I wouldn’t be able to doze back off and ride the churning crisis out till morning, I booked a beeline for the bathroom. And I took a crossword puzzle; this was going to take a while.

Now, I’m not going to get into graphic or unbecoming details here. Suffice it to say that the next twenty minutes or so were unpleasant in a number of ways, and reminded me of a Blue Man Group show: I had no idea what was happening, there were noises I’d never heard before, and by the end, there was toilet paper everywhere.

I’m just glad I decided not to sit in the ‘poncho section’. Don’t ask. Just don’t.

After the smoke had cleared, I gathered myself and went back to bed. There hadn’t been time to check the clock on the way out, and I was curious what time it was, so I checked. And found that it was twenty minutes before my wife’s alarm goes off.

“I had no idea what was happening, there were noises I’d never heard before, and by the end, there was toilet paper everywhere.”

Now, that didn’t mean much for me personally. I’m not a light sleeper, by any means, and sleep through her alarm — and often, mine — on a regular basis. I could sleep through a freight train running through the living room. With Doctor NyQuil in my corner, I could probably have slept through a train running through my colon.

(Though perhaps not, since that’s pretty much the feeling that woke me up. But I digress.)

But the first thing the missus wants to do in the morning is hit the shower. Which is in the bathroom. Which I’d just vacated, and left in a sad, sickly, and savagely subpar state of affairs. The old commercials claimed that the smell of Coast soap would ‘wake you up in the morning’. I had a feeling that she’d certainly be awake when she hit the bathroom — but she might not be very happy about it.

Still, there was little I could do. Weakened by illness, sedated by medication, and exhausted by the horde of demons that had apparently just torn through my digestive tract, I was fast asleep before I knew it. And, as promised, I slept through my wife’s alarm. And mine.

When I did wake up, four hours later, my wife was nowhere to be found. This is unusual, but not completely unprecedented. She usually says goodbye before leaving for work at approximately the asscrack of dawn, but at that unholy hour, I’m sometimes too out of it to remember, or even wake up enough to properly respond. I imagine some mornings, it’s sort of a ‘drool once for ‘Love you!’; drool twice for ‘Have a nice day!‘ proposition for her.

(Just to cover all the bases, I try to drool continuously during these conversations. It’s no good for the pillowcases, but it speaks volumes that I can’t possibly manage at that time of day.)

So, I assumed she’d left for work already. Still, given the adventures of the wee hours past, I half-expected to find her ashen and naked in the bath, clutching the shower curtain and gasping, ‘the horror… the… horror!‘

Luckily, that wasn’t the case. Also luckily, the one ‘Dances with Dysentery’ episode is the only one this illness has offered so far. Just to be safe, though, I’ve got a backup plan. If the tummy rumbles visit again tonight, I’m taking a poop on the porch. That way, she won’t even notice until she’s out of the house, and with any luck will think it’s some prankster kids in the neighborhood. Or possibly a bear.

An extremely unhappy bear, perhaps, with stomach parasites, a burrito fetish, and too much roughage in his diet. Still, at least we can each have a nice shower in the morning. That sounds like progress to me.

Now, it’s time for another visit from Doc NyQuil; g’night, kids!