Disguises Mean Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

Clyde doing what he does best.

Clyde throws up so much and so often that had I thought to document these moments, I think I could make one of those calendars like on KodakGallery or iPhoto.  Here’s Clyde vomiting through the seasons! I don’t care who you are.  You’ve never known a vomit-er quite like my Clyde.   He has a weak stomach with some acid reflux leftover from his infancy, when he threw up daily.  So if he comes down with something, anything – a cold, a toothache, a fever, a hangnail, a lost eyelash, he vomits.  He is not a sturdy child.  The last time he threw up was on a ski trip at a cabin we’d rented.  I knew it was coming because he’s very sensitive to smells when he’s about to be sick.  We’d just come in from skiing and a friend had some cider on the stove and Clyde immediately shouted, “Jesus!  What’s that smell?”  He swears.  Though this is his only swear word.  Jesus.  Sometimes Jesus Christ, which I prefer.  He learned this from his dad, who apparently says it constantly.  But yeah, anyway, he’s good about using it in context like when he can’t get his shoes on or can’t find his backpack, or when someone makes apple cider.  I can’t complain.  Context is everything.   So, five minutes after he swears about the cider, I’m sprinting through the cabin towards the bathroom with him, trying to make a running hurdle over a baby gate in my path.  You can guess how that ended.

I’m not sure anything can top last night though.  He’s been sick with a cold for a couple of days.  And it was looking okay, good even.  It looked like this time it was just a cold minus the vomit sidekick.  What the hell, I thought, let’s go out for pizza.  He was kind of lethargic and wanted to be carried.  Okay, I thought.  And then he wanted to lie down in the booth.  Hmm, I thought.  So we sat there awhile and a couple came in and gave us that mildly disgusted look we get sometimes that says, shit, that’s a lot of kids.  Everything was going fine and the waitress brought our mini pizzas.   About thirty seconds later I heard it, the first of several heaves.  I think the guy in the next booth said, “Oh”  or “Oh no”  or maybe, in solidarity with Clyde, “Jesus Christ!”  I’m not sure, it happened very fast.  And God, was there a lot of it.  Because I’m good at this by now, I stripped off my hoody and started trying to clean it up, while I barked instructions to Hazel:  Take Ivy outside, get me some towels, go tell the lady at the counter, grab my keys, get me a hose... and so on.  By then the grumpy couple were staring, turning in their booth to get a good look at the cabaret of Hazel and Ivy stumbling from our booth as I hoisted Clyde up with one hand, while using the other to mop things up with the hoody.  I took Clyde outside in case he was planning an encore and propped him against the wall outside.  “I need to get Ivy, you stay with him,” I told Hazel. “Please no,” she said.  By the time I got Ivy outside, Clyde had slumped over and lay curled up like the Little Match Girl in the early stages of rigor mortis.  I looked up and through the windows watched with a mixture of relief and horror as the grumpy lady strode up to the counter to deliver the news.

I don’t think I can go back there though.  Maybe ever.  If we do, we’ll have to wear disguises.  Especially Clyde, whose face is by now seared into the mind of every employee working there last night.  Maybe he can wear a wig.  Or a mustache. Yeah, a mustache.  When I go to the counter and order and they say, “Hey, wait isn’t that the kid who…” I’ll interrupt them and say, “No, this isn’t a kid, he’s my husband.  Can’t you see his mustache?  He has a growth disorder, but thanks for bringing it up, you jerk.  Now, where was I.  Oh right.  Three mini pizzas please.”