Damn Kids

This weekend, I attended a kid's birthday party in Salem. Despite the dangerous combination of seven-year-olds, drums, and my epic hangover, it was a good time. The party had a rock and roll theme, which was greatly enhanced by a three-year-old boy who vomited profusely all over his mother.

Seriously, it was like something out of The Exorcist. I don't know how a little body could produce so much bile. He went home with his puke-soaked mother, and I helped clean up the remnants before another kid fell in it. (And by help clean it up, I ripped up paper towels for my friend, who was doing that thing mothers do when they don't care how foul something is, they'll clean it if it needs to be done.)

I thought he might have eaten too much. But I later found out that the boy's sisters and mother had recently dealt with the stomach bug. And, lo and behold, I woke up today with stomach cramps. I suffered through a meeting this morning, and broke out in hives toward the end of it. Hives. What the hell kind of virus is this?

As I write this, I'm laying very still on my bed, hoping not to disturb whatever part of my intestines that are causing me so much pain. And reminding myself to get my tubes tied when I go into the hospital from whatever serious medical condition this virulent germ causes me. I have stuff to do, body. Sack up and fight it.