It’s the night before you flight, and something just ain’t right.
Look out, ICT, you is about to see all the wrong kinds of white…
“Oh, crap! I just knew eating Chipotle the night before my flight was a bad idea! Maybe once I get it out of my system, all will be well…”
I sat in the bathroom of our hotel room just down the road from the Islamic Center of the Triad ICT–aka Wichita International Airport–trying not to panic. My Beautiful Bride and our Elder daughter, who was barely a year old at the time, slept peacefully in the other room, and no matter what unfolded over the next few minutes, I swore to myself I wouldn’t wake them. No need for them to get all worked up over Daddy having a little upset tummy, right?
“Okay, just breathe,” I told myself, “surely this will pass in no time.”
My little pep-talk seemed to work for about 3 minutes before–
“Dammit, this is happening isn’t it?!?” I thought to myself as I projectile vomited my partially-digested custom-made burrito, et. al, into the grossly undersized bathroom trash can.
Y’all have been there before no doubt: you somehow manage to go through all 5 stages of grief in a matter of milliseconds when you throw up. Long past the bargaining stage, settled into the acceptance stage by the second or third heave, calmly assuring myself that this would be the end of the drama
I threw up at 12 am the night before my 7 am flight–so what? No big deal. Nothing a quick medianoche shower couldn’t take care of. I would be back in the comfy hotel bed and getting well-rested in no time!
“…in no time at all…” I told myself…
“You gotta be ----- kidding me!” I muttered to the Cosmos as I groggily rolled out of bed and shuffled back to the bathroom.
I couldn’t have gotten more than 45 minutes to an hour of sleep before my tummy started rumbling again–a fact easily confirmed by the bright red LCD ‘2:00’ staring at me from the unnaturally bright hotel alarm clock.
“I guess there’s still a little Chipotle in my system…might as well get it out and be done with it sooner than later–I got a flight to catch in just a few hours!”
In a situation like this, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be an optimist about things. Besides, who has the emotional energy to go through the 5 stage of grief all over again. We all knew what was about to happen, so might as well just skip to acceptance from the get-go.
I dutifully parked myself on the potty and placed the trash can in front of me, patiently waiting for Round 2 to begin…
“What a twist!” I found myself almost exclaiming aloud an excruciatingly long 3-5 minutes later. “I did not see that coming!”
At least I had a sense of humor about the latest plot development: I wasn’t vomiting this time around; ye ol’ Chipotle decided to take the back exit this time around. And it was a gentle ordeal either–there were no orderly single-file lines here…more like a stampede toward the exit after someone yelled ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater (if you know what I mean).
After briefly debating whether this incident warranted another shower, I quickly shifted my mental focus to the disturbing trend that could possibly be emerging. Would this be a ‘rinse and repeat’ ordeal? But surely I would be feeling all hunky-dory before we had to head out the door. Surely…
“Welp, at least I can time things out now…” I once again tried to look on the bright side of things.
The hotel clock blazed like a thousand suns as it burned ‘4:02’ into my weary retinas. So, 12…2…4…it was looking like I was on a pretty regular 2-hour cycle. Not that this was a theorem I was particular eager to test out, but, if true, gave me a shot at not getting caught with my pants up when I really needed them down. Or nowhere near a trash can if–
“Wait! This just in! We are getting news reports confirming that–“
BLAAAARRRRRF!
“–that Cycle 3 is indeed vomiting. Ladies and gentlemen, it would appear that odd cycles are spewing from the oral orifice. Pundits are predicting that even cycles–including the upcoming 6 o’clock session–will be spewing from the anal orifice, as was Cycle 2 at 2 o’clock. Stay tuned, folks, stay tuned…”
“Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!” my cell phone’s alarm clock gently whispered in my ear. “It’s 5:55 am. Time to pee from your butt in approximately 5 minutes…”
I was evolving. I was learning. I was recognizing patterns. And this time, I was pre-empting the literal sh*t-show that was about to go down.
Call me Poop-stradamus if you like, ‘cuz my prediction was dead-on: promptly at 6:00 am, the fireworks began, and promptly at 6:03 they ended. Now if only airlines could be reliably on such a timely and regular scheduled, because we had a 7:30 am flight to Atlanta to catch, and even a 20-minute delay could lead to disaster…
“Hey Babe, aren’t you going to fill up the rental car with gas before we drop it off? They’re going to charge us like $50 if we don’t.”
I just blankly stared at My Beautiful Bride with hollow, soul-less eyes. She paused and noted the colorless shell of a man that was already parking the car without any emotion.
“Oh…right.” She said quietly.
“That’s a price I’m willing to pay.” I said like I were a proverbial ‘man of few words’.
She didn’t say anything further while she collected the baby from the backseat and I quietly collected our luggage from the trunk.
My scheduled 30 minutes of armistice with my digestive system was about up, and we still had check-in and security ahead. If only we could make it past security, then I might be okay…
“Attention all travellers…mumble mumble mumble garble garble garble…”
They were announcing something over the PA system in the airport, but I could care less. It took every ounce of the man that I was to focus on doing nothing but patiently stand in the check-in line. If I didn’t acknowledge my dire situation, then my body couldn’t do anything untoward, right? If I stayed calm and didn’t panic, I would be alright…right?
At first I thought it was just me when it seemed like time stood still. After all, I had a hard choice in front of me: get on the plane with my wife and baby daughter and commit to two 2-hour flights and a 1-hour layover of pure misery and hoping for fortunate timing, or go back to the hotel and ride it out by myself for another day and catch a flight to North Carolina the next day? Neither option seemed particularly enticing, and while I was on the precipice of Option 1, the very high probability of either violently sh*tting my pants in public and/or barfing on the bald head of the middle-aged man unfortunate enough to be sitting in front of me wasn’t getting me very excited about stepping foot on that plane.
I snapped out of it briefly though when My Beautiful Bride started muttering about the line not moving, coupled with a bit of hub-hub at the check-in desk.
That’s when I realized what all those PA announcements had been about.
“Aw, hell naw! Not today, melon-farmers, not today…”
“But wait! What happened? What very dramatic and exciting series of events transpired at the Wichita Airport on that fateful day in April 2014? We are inquiring minds and we want to know!” you are no doubt screaming at your computer screen or mobile device right now.
“Are you alive today because you didn’t get on that plane? How did you finally make it home to NC? Did you spew on the back of the bald head of a middle-aged man? No–let me guess: it was worse: you forcefully pooped your pants in public? That was it, wasn’t it?” you continue to rage in oratory anticipation at the inanimate object in front of you.
Well, Bro, first take a chill pill, and–about that latter accusation–if I did theoretically defecate in an unfortunate social situation, I would just like to point out that it wouldn’t have been my first rodeo.1Yes, this is shameless plug in hopes of getting you to go back and read one of my classic posts from the first year of this esteemed blog.
The point of the story is have a little patience, my friend! In due time–i.e. next week–you will get to hear all about my not-so-happy poo times. And look, if I had the mental fortitude to stand in that forsake check-in/security line with no bathroom within quenched-sphincter hobbling distance, then you, too, can bear with me a mere 7 days.
All in poo–er, I mean, doo-doo–dangit, I mean ‘due’–all in due time, Amigo, all in due time…
Content created on: 20/21 April 2023 (Thurs/Sat)
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