Getting Sick in Public!

Hey kids, have you heard? It's the newest sensation that's sweeping the nation! All the cool kids are in the know, so go ahead and give it a go! Be sure your friends film it, funnier than a blow to the groin video!

Good grief. I haven't been sick in public since I was a kid and that pretty much scarred me for life. (After gorging myself on popcorn, candy and soda at the movies, my parents thought it'd be a wonderful idea to go out for pizza. On my mad dash to the bathroom, I didn't quite make it, and a woman screamed. Actually screamed!) So...after this traumatic incident, you better believe I was totally mortified about what happened last weekend.

My wife and I are still testing the waters of our pandemic era, but we miss eating out. So I found a new restaurant that bragged about two--count 'em, two!--patios. With the weather suddenly nice, we decided to invite a couple friends and outside we sat.

Now, I have to detail this important interlude: Lately I am prone to having mega-honkingly-humongous vitamins stuck in my chest and I can't even get liquid down before they come splashing up again. It also happens with dry chicken. And sometimes when I skip a meal in anticipation of the culinary delights ahead of me or I get excited and speak without properly chewing my food (I know... I'm a barbarian). This occurs three or four times a year. The last time I remember it happening was Thanksgiving. But I knew it was coming, so excused myself to the bathroom, back in time for pumpkin pie.

I've told a doctor about this occurrence and she brushed it off as acid reflux.

(I remember having a conversation with my mom about it:

"What did the doctor say?"

"That I have acid reflux."

"Spit-up," she says, nodding with authority as only mothers can.

"No, not 'spit-up,' whatever that is. The doctor called it acid reflux."

"Right. Spit-up."

"No! It's not spit-up! It's acid--"

"I know, Stuart, I know! You don't have to yell at me! Spit-up!")

Anyway, I don't think it's acid reflux, nor do I think it's spit-up (which I'm still not sure what that is). It's not stomach related. More of a choking thing.

My wife thinks I may have a "constricted esophagus." Which sounds kinda bad-ass. At least much more so than "spit-up." Besides, it would go right along with my "deviated septum." Which is what I put on my social media profiles: Hi, I'm Stuart and I have a constricted esophagus and deviated septum." (I think this explains why I'm on a few watch lists.) If only I had a narrow urethra, then I'd have the trifecta of cool. But there I go again, getting digression all over the place.

Back to the restaurant, I didn't heed the warning signs. Dear God, I wished I had. I suppose I knew it was coming, starting with a few up-top hiccups (not the deep kind that rattle your rib-cage, but from up on top of my throat). I even said, "Uh oh."

Jokes were made, my buddy suggested scaring me. Ha ha ha all around. My wife quietly urged, "Go to the bathroom."

But I stuck it out, thinking I could fight the rising tide. I have before. If only I could get past that blockage. I started drinking more water (what little I could swallow) which just made it worse.

Sure enough, I felt the tide rise and surge. Not wanting to cause a scene, I whipped the cloth napkin to my mouth. I would've ran to the john, but of course the armada of servers decided to descend on us at the same time (There were at least five servers bringing food out, no kidding; the only thing missing was Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" over the speakers.). So I was stuck. Sitting there throwing up, trying to swallow it back down, coughing into my napkin, and filling it with all sorts of awful stuff. Meanwhile, several servers are trying to ask if I had the filet. My eyes are watering, vomit's running down my shirt, and Chad is asking if I had the filet.

Dizzy, I stood, dashed all the way inside and through the restaurant, pin-balling off of employees and customers, and barely made it into the bathroom. (And when I say "into" the bathroom, that's kinda not accurate; it's a new out in the open, unisex line of stalls. I'm certain those enjoying their dinners were appreciating my calling the dinosaurs.)

Thoroughly humiliated, I splashed my face and slunk back to our table. Everyone inquired as to how I was doing, but I really just wanted to get outta there.

As we left, the army of servers were all extremely polite. We ran a veritable gauntlet of them, opening doors for us, wishing us well, thanking us... major overkill while all I wanted was to die a quiet death. The staff was either thrilled to get rid of me or worried I'd sue over choking.

Yep, my first bout with public sickness since childhood. Only this time was much, MUCH worse.

So, let this be a cautionary tale. If your body speaks out, heed the advice and go to the john before it's too late.

Speaking of getting sick, meet Richard "Tex" McKenna, teenage guy witch. He's got problems, man, has he got 'em. Caught between two warring high school gangs, a mysterious goth girl, and a vengeful ghost, Tex barely has time for school and the requisite bullies. But he gets revenge on one bully by hurling on him (okay, okay, I know it's not that big of a deal to the book, but I had to tie it into the blog post some how!). Read all about it in book #2 of the Tex, the Witch Boy series, Tex and the Gangs of Suburbia!

Under the Thrall of the Witch of Oz

My daughter lives in "Oz."

No, that's not the real name of the place, nor is it the HBO prison where love reigns, and I haven't lost the ability to differentiate between fiction and reality. It's a sorta, sometimes nickname for the lil' small (but big on charm!) town in which my daughter has decided to set her roots.

As a banker, her job is varied, which I guess is kinda par for the course for small towns. She runs the gamut of doing banking chores, personal crisis counseling, and scoping out plots of land for customers to bury bodies on. But the most curious thing she does is run errands for the town's crazy lady.

One time while visiting, she told me she dreaded going to work tomorrow. I asked her why.

"Because I have to go on a grocery run for...(honestly, I can't think of her name and even if I could, I wouldn't publish it) 'Mabel.'"

"Huh," I said. "So she must be a good customer."

"No, she's not a customer."

SOOOO many crickets. My brain ground through rusty cogs and wheels and gizmos. "But...but...but why are you going to get her groceries if she's not a customer? And even if she was a customer, isn't that going beyond the realm of good customer service?" (Side note: this small and quaint town is soooo small and quaint, it doesn't have a grocery store. You have to go to Walmart in the next town over. There're three tattoo parlors, three nail salons, 800 churches, and a bar, but no grocery store!)

"I don't know," she said. "It's just something everybody does!"

"WHAAAA? And she's not a customer??? But...but...what strange witchery is this?"

The witch of Oz's back story gets even weirder/stranger/awesome, depending on how you view it. Once, when my daughter's boss went to her house because she beckoned, she answered the door without any pants on. And one day she came into the bank with no eyebrows.

"Someone broke into my house and burnt my eyebrows off," she explained with a straight face and no eyebrows.

But my daughter (and a lot of the town's members) often go on errands for her, hauling a 20 pound bag of potatoes up two flights of steps. Sorcery!

Here's the best part: the woman pays my daughter off in ice cream drumsticks! (Where does she get this endless supply since they're never on her shopping list? Perhaps she's a rich, eccentric drumstick heiress.)

Yes, through either sorcery or subtle psychological manipulation, Mabel has the town do her bidding, and while under her thrall, her minions are helpless as they scramble to get cigarettes and TV dinners for her. Is she a good witch or a bad witch? The verdict's still out. Just beware of strangers bearing drumsticks.

Speaking of witches, one factors in mightily in one of the tales in my darkly comical and spooky collection of horror tales, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley. As a matter of fact, the small town in which this peculiar tale is set is very similar to "Oz." Could it be...a TRUE STORY?