Warning: Graphic and disgusting subject matter. Not for the faint of heart. Reminiscent of my prior post on the topic: The Diarrhea Diaries. Which, as it turns out, was volume one of an unfortunate series.

Dear Diarrhea:

The US Food and Drug administration recommends two to four servings of fruit per day.

I don’t think they had this in mind:

BEWARE KILLER MELONS!

Killer Watermelon — Borrowed without permissions from drawception.com.

If you visited the CNN article I referenced, you get why I fear produce. If you didn’t trip the above link, the 20-point, bold font title of the article pretty much says it all:

“Multistate salmonella outbreak linked to pre-cut melon”

Now the fact that pre-cut watermelon has been spreading salmonella throughout the midwest wouldn’t ordinarily concern me except for two things:

I ate some pre-cut watermelon Sunday.
Monday began a marathon that makes the prospect of running 26 some miles actually pleasant by comparison. This is not that kind of marathon.*

I did not buy my melon at any of the stores referenced in the CNN piece on salmonella contaminated fruits. This does not stop me from putting a very strong set of coincidences together and coming up with a likely culprit to my week spent regretting everything I’ve ever eaten that I did not personally sterilize in a 1400 degree Fahrenheit kiln.

I spent the last (gets calculator, does math) 168 hours visiting the powder room. HOURLY. Sometimes more frequently. A brief itinerary of my adventures can be summed up this way:

Day 1: 6:00 a.m. – stomach lets out initial howls of protest. By 4:00 p.m., I am so sick, I’m curled up on the floor of my son’s therapy office wishing I didn’t have to drive us back home.

“Can’t we just live here?”

Day 2: After waking all night long to tango with the toilet, fever strikes and I shake my digital read-out thermometer convinced it has to be wrong.

Day 3: Have decided that having a will to live kind of sucks. Scrounge through medicine cabinets to find decade’s old Tylenol and take it, hoping it will kill me.

Day 4: Fever finally breaks and I would celebrate, but I’m getting low on toilet paper and there seems to be no end in sight.

Day 5: Am now reconsidering my agnostic stance and will willingly convert to whatever religion will cure me.**

Day 6: There may be light at the end of the tunnel, but I suspect they are the tiny sparks as each of my brain cells implode from dehydration. I gird my loins and guzzle Kefir straight from the carton.***

I wipe curdled cream from my lips and scream:

“Take that, you plague-ridden, bacteria bastards!”

Today is Day 7. It has been a week and, slowly, I am feeling somewhat human. Though, of course, the diarrhea hasn’t given up trying to kill me. I counter its vicious attacks with a chemical carpet bombing of Gatorade and Live-Culture acidophilus pills.

I’d really like this to be the worst thing that will ever happen to me, but I known I am just not that lucky.

As for whether this was a case of Salmonella or not, who knows? If it wasn’t, I sincerely pity the people who’ve had it worse.

If anybody needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom…freshening up.

Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:

*Hint: it was not a Law & Order Marathon either.

**I’m looking at you, Vishnu, you beautiful blue man. Although, Shiva the Destroyer makes more sense in the circumstances.

***Kefir – the sound you involuntarily make after tasting fermented yogurt drink. Which tastes just as bad as it sounds.

Feature image stolen from UK Pinterest site. Please forgive me, I have no energy or desire to get my own watermelon and recreate your excellent work. Although, Gallagher’s work on expressing rage by smashing fruit with a giant mallet is starting to make a great deal more sense to me now.

House Plant Killer — My nurturing skills might could use some work.

(alternate title)

Why I should put the damned remote down before child services steps in.

I have a lot of bad habits.* The worst of which is, I suffer temporal dysmorphia—time passes strangely in my presence. I don’t know if this is a real condition but I know that, whenever my son finally goes to bed for the night, I’m deluded into thinking that the clock stops moving and I am no longer bound by the laws of physics. Suddenly, I think I have all the time in the world.

I will happily utilize my Personal Eternity Field™ to cruise the internet, chat with friends in other states, read or, worst of all, channel surf until I develop remote-control finger. (It still twitches in my sleep trying to find something better to dream about on another channel.) But the reckoning comes when I finally do look at a clock and reality strikes twelve…or possibly one, two or three o’clock in the morning. And I have to get up at 6:30a.m. to stumble through the day.

For years I have been guilty of this. I drag myself to work on little to no sleep, drowning in caffeinated beverages until my kidneys complain for all the overtime they are putting in. I tell myself, “I’m fine. I function well enough. I am a productive membrane of sociopathy…wait, what was I saying?” I would also claim that “It’s no big deal. I’m only hurting myself.” Until yesterday.

Yesterday, I drove home from work, changed into comfy workout clothes and set up my computer in a lovely, silent kitchen. It appeared as though grandma had taken Booger (aka the fruit of my womb) somewhere for a treat. So I relax and enjoy the peace of no child running around playing “I Am a Pizza” until my ears bleed. (YouTube it later at your peril.) As the time approached 5:30, I start to question a good thing, “Hmm, I wonder where mom has taken Das Kind off to?”** So I give her a call.

“Mom, where’s Alexei?” I ask.

“I dropped him at music, like usual. Why?” Grandma/Babysitter/Person-Who-is-Questioning-My-Parenting-Skills says.

“Shit. It’s Tuesday. Crap. Gotta go.” I say, running for my coat and the keys to my car.

I was supposed to pick him up at around 5:15. It’s around 5:45 when I finally get there. I am all apologies when I race into the building to get my son. I know we’ve interrupted another student’s lesson because I forgot, for a moment, that I had a child.***

“Don’t worry, this is what interns are for!” Miranda, the saint-like, long-suffering music therapist, says. Is it any wonder the woman’s name means ‘Worthy of Being Admired’?

On that subject, I suspect that somewhere, in a future Baby Name Book, mine will come to mean: Forgetful, Lost in Thought, Probably Shouldn’t Have Children…or Houseplants.

So, I have had a clear and unmistakable warning that the long-term consequences of my tempus hubris could be much more severe than a tendency to be half-asleep at my desk. If I am so tired I am checked out of life, I might actually miss out on being a parent. Parenting is an around-the-clock responsibility. It is not for the faint of heart, nor, apparently, the short of sleep. So, I have added a reminder notice to my phone so that, every evening, it tells me the title of my favorite not-for-children’s story book:

Go the F to Sleep — An Actual Book, I Actually Own and, Apparently, Have Learned Nothing From.

And if somehow the message doesn’t sink in, it might be time for drastic measures. I’ll have to get a tattoo somewhere quite visible that says:

Tempus Fugit: Time Waits for No Man…Or Woman Either…This Means You! Now Seriously, Get Some Sleep. Your Kidneys Will Thank You.

Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:

*We’ll save that list for another blog, or ten.

**Das Kind—is German for somebody got down and dirty with a wurst and nine-months later produced a cocktail weenie. (Or Eine Kleine Frankfurterette, if it’s a girl.)

***Approximately ten years ago, to be exact. You’d think it would have sunk in by now.