CRAZY SHIT
Traveler’s Diarrhea Spreads a Saucy Scene on a Cross-Country Trip
The shittiest times can make for a parent’s fondest memories
My husband and I once flew from Seattle to Miami with our two-year-old and one-year-old sons. Two flights, one long day. I was seven months pregnant with our daughter at the time.
For some God-awful reason we’d birthed a plan to drive down to the Keys afterward to meet my dad, brother, and brother’s girlfriend. They’d be flying down from Michigan to escape a week’s worth of winter.
Why bother to take a couple of back-to-back, cross-country, Christmastime flights with two littles — and then drive for the better part of the next day? Especially when you’re large-and-in-charge with child?
Flipper knows. We’re masochists? And it had been a minute since we’d had a family “vacation” that was enough of a pain in the asscrack to remind us of why we shouldn’t. Another reason was that my grandparents lived in Florida and we’d ostensibly drive to see them, too! Make a whole trip of it, you know?
Yeah.
No.
’Cause I’m Leaving On A Wet Plane
We’d had to get up early as farts to leave for the airport.
Naturally, I was sick. I’d been having [insert euphemism for sh*tting water] for the previous few days; I wasn’t debilitated, but I didn’t exactly have Simone Biles levels of energy, either. John and Wes were fine.
But Joe was juuust getting waved over with the ‘rrhea wand as we were trying to hustle our luggage into the car. I strapped the kidlets into their car seats and waited. Ten minutes went by. Fifteen.
I don’t like to be late to things. Joe is Dude-esque about waltzing into the airport at the last tenth of a second before the jetway is closed, but I am more of a “Big” Lebowski about stuff like being on time for flights. I was feeling “very un-Dude.”
New shit was coming to light, though —I had no idea at that moment but Joe was absolutely tearing himself a new colon right then in our bathroom. Whatever virus I’d had was trying to grab him by the ankles, drag him to air travel Hell, and leave nothing but an angry trail of toilet paper behind.
A few minutes later Joe was driving us down I-5 toward SeaTac at about 4:30 AM. He later told me he’d considered pulling over to vomit and soil ‘trou. And thought better of it, as we were two lanes over from the cement divider and also there was no shoulder.
Plus, we were running short on time.
We got to the airport, parked, shuttled, dragged all our crap in, and tried to check in at a kiosk — no dice. We had a lap child and a barely-old-enough for non-lap one. A face-to-face with the airline wenches was needed.
Joe shoved both kids at me and mumbled something about having to go to the bathroom.
“Start checking in. I’ll be right back.”
Umm.
I got out of line and waited.
God Speed Your Love To Me
The four of us made our flight, but not before Joe spent an excruciating 20 more minutes humming Unchained Anus in the terminal bathroom. He gritted his teeth and clenched cheek through security. There were beads of forehead sweat and visible distress.
I’m all about “punting” in high-pressure parenting situations. It almost would have been fine by me to turn around and drive back home. But then again, both Joe and I hated the idea of waste. Waste money or waste underwear? It was a conundrum.
In the end it came down to cheapness, a sick sense of adventure, and an irrational desire to share some special moments with our loved ones.
Onward.
We are a “real” couple with a “real” commitment to authenticity — Joe and I keep things a little bit too real with each other at times, and this was no exception. Joe gave me a blow-by-blow each time he hauled ass to the ladies’ that day. I laughed at him, as an empathic spouse does.
Things only got real-er as the day went on.
Joe parked John on his lap for an airplane-issued breakfast — a plastic bowl of Cheerios, complete with cold milk from the flight attendant.
John ate the whole thing and immediately barfed it back into said-bowl. At least he didn’t get it all over everyone’s clothes, I thought.
But the damned virus had grabbed him, too.
Fabric Of Our Lives
There are trips to remember, and there are trips to wipe clean from around the mind’s brown eye with a full pack of baby wipes. Our vacation proved to be of the latter kind.
By the time we arrived at our stilt-house on Grassy Key, we had thrown away Wes’ blankie — a Target-bought one, not an heirloom. Will had succumbed to The Yuck, too, and pumped his clothing, car seat, and lovey with yellow butt foam. A loud gurgle announced this fact several times in the few-minute span it took us to pull over. The fabric items were unsalvageable.
Poop was in the very fibers of our being.
The following scene played on repeat:
[Gurgle] [Pull over]
[Gurgle gurgle] Jesus, Sandy, and Bud. [Pull over].
John and Wes gave a chorus of sharts over the hours’ drive. If you’ve driven through the Florida Keys, you’re familiar with the fact that there isn’t exactly a Barnes & Noble waiting at the next exit for your poops. Nor are there “exits.” Or much of anything but road, wetlands, and sea. We kept having to find a spot to pull to the roadside and clean up, as it would have been hideous to just let them sit in it.
Clean is as clean does. Still, “there was no joy in Mudville,” FL. Everyone’s butt was red and angry.
Flip It Good
Our major outing was to the Dolphin Research Center [external link], home of the facility where the original Flipper dolphin was trained.¹ There is now a manatee rescue program, dolphinarium, and as a Wayans brother once quipped in Don’t Be a Menace, “some other ill sh*t.”
It was COOL.
But it was a little too cool. John quickly lost his sh*t. Wouldn’t somebody PLEASE let him go swimming in the Gulf with those corralled dolphins? That one guy in the wetsuit who was talking to the crowd was doing it! His two-year-old brain demanded to know. John screamed and lunged as I dragged him out of the marine sanctuary.
If I could relive this experience right now, I’d buy John a shark Beanie Baby from the gift shop just to shut him up for another 20 minutes. He was two. Overtired and overstimulated. Not to mention totally in the right for wanting to get the f*ck in that water with those awesome swimming critters!
I’m ready to be a grandma with that attitude.
And it would also be one of the very few times when Wes was the more docile of our toddlers, Wes being the purveyor of the Wail of Injustice™ and all.
Poop in a Group
My brother, Mack, and his girlfriend, Meggy, arrived.
They each spent a full day in our vacation rental’s bathroom after spending some time with us. Same with my dad.
Was it The Virus? Their loud retching was the clincher. I didn’t ask any of them whether their crap was yellow and/or the consistency of shaving cream, but I considered it.² Poor Mack, Meggy, and Grandpa Tim fell victim to the traveler’s revenge.
But really, it wasn’t traveler’s diarrhea; it was us who brought on the vom. Traveler’s tummy is a scourge of those who visit places with less-sanitary water. Mayo Clinic says that viruses, bacteria, and parasites cause it. But this wellspring of illness probably wasn’t a case of Montezuma’s Revenge —I’d had it before our trip. So their suffering was all thanks to a family that went out of its way to share the yucky love.
When our kids grow up, Joe and I may get bored of having no more small asses to wipe. To make matters worse our kids regularly threaten not to have children themselves, citing fecal exhaustion. If these things are true I will sign the huz and I up for a couples’ cruise.
We can lick the elevator buttons and pray for rotavirus. And the gastrointestinal memories will come flooding back.
¹ More on the history of the facility — including the extraordinary stories of Mitzi the Flipper dolphin and her owner’s rehabilitation from a broken back — is here [external link].
² I’m a firm believer in keeping things awkward.
Special thanks to Hogan Torah’s Twitter flex for squeezing out my creative juices. And for the Sharethrough and Pexels hot tips. If you hate my raunchy headline, blame him! Thanks, also, to Jenna Tico, whose writings reminded me of these misadventures. Shoutout to Mike Butler, who seems like a guy who loves a good poop story.
Join Lindy Vogel on Medium, get her humor newsletter, and follow Sweary Mommy for more tasteful, tangy tales from the parenthood plane.
