It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole week already. A week since that fateful day when I chaperoned Maya’s third grade field trip. Originally I had thought riding a bus with 40 screaming 9-yr-olds would be the worst part of my day; but of course I was wrong.
It all started around 45 minutes into our bus ride to the museum. The twists, turns and potholes got the best of my stomach but nothing a good lunch can’t fix, so I thought. After lunch, my stomach still didn’t feel great but our school was scheduled to be in the IMAX theater for an up close screening of Whales.
This theater is, of course, the biggest IMAX screen ever built, so naturally our experience would be no less than stellar. Normally I would be stoked for the show. But being someone who gets motion sickness, and is already feeling queesy, watching whales barreling through the open seas was the worst idea ever. But I didn’t have a choice.
An hour later I find myself stumbling out of the theater and feeling even worse. Luckily it’s time to go home. So we board the bus and head out.
The bus ride home was worse than the ride there and I’m progressively feeling worse. As I’m continually telling myself “Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. You’re fine. You’re not gonna get sick.” I find that not only would ralphing feel great but I now have to poo from being so anxious about the possibility of puking in front of a bus full of third graders. I mean, I’m sure everyone has the urge to have a nervous poo when they are about to throw up, right?!?! No? Well, huh!
The minutes tick by slowly and I’m praying our hour and twenty minute trip home doesn’t become foiled by traffic. Thankfully it doesn’t. As soon as we pull into the school lot and the bus starts to stop I bolted off the bus ahead of all the kids and made a bee line for my car parked just on the other side of the buses. And as I open my car door, I erupted. Ten minutes later I look up to see ALL the buses lined up in perfect view of my show. Fab!
Feeling better, I saunter into school to sign Maya out. No problem. As we are walking out I notice a strand of hair in my peripheral vision that’s caked with strawberry crud and then I look down in disappointment only to notice puke splattered up my pant leg. Score.
As we head for our car I notice other parents with kids taking a big step or leap, if you will, over the curb area near my car. Yes, that’s right, I was parked on a hill and my vomit trickled down the curb line creating a pink moat as an obstacle for others. Icing on the cake! To top it off Maya says “How embarrassing you puked up strawberries in front of my whole school!” Touché kiddo, touché!
And for the record, I actually had a stomach bug and continued to puke for the next eight hours.