Vomit Shower

Here is one of my essays, it's my favorite. Hope the subject doesn't gross you out too much, not everyone thinks puke is funny. (If you have a weak stomach, read something else from my other posts.) When things like this happen, what else can someone do besides laugh, going insane isn't always an option-a vacation, yes-but not a permanent solution.

“Vomit Shower”

It all started at 3 a.m. with a yell, “Mom, Oscar's is throwing up on me!” Never mind the coffee, I was instantly wide awake. I ran into the room my two oldest boys shared and surveyed the chaos. Yep, it was puke and it was everywhere. Oscar had been feeling under the weather and sometime during the night had known something was off. Not wanting to get sick on his own bed, he had leaned over the rail of the top bunk and had thrown up. His older brother Leif, in the bottom bunk, woke up to a hot vomit shower. Oscar just kept on hurling over Leif’s bed with Leif still in it. I don’t know which kid had the funnier look on his face— Oscar’s wide eyed look of guilt or Leif’s look of disbelief and shock. And then Oscar did it again. I just stood there, frozen. Finally springing to action, I ran for a bucket. After Oscar had the bucket in hand, I helped him down the slippery wet ladder and looked at his PJ’s. They were clean, not a drop on them. The same was true of his sheets and blankets. I shook my head in disbelief and sent him to the bathroom. I turned to Leif on the bottom bunk. I didn’t even know where to start.
“Just stand up, strip off your PJ’s and leave them here on the floor. Go take a shower and then come back here and help me clean up.” I threw in a please at the end when I saw the look on his face. Not only had he been thrown up on but now he had to help clean it up.
“It’s not fair,” he grumbled. I agreed. A beautiful dream about me and Brad Pitt on vacation in France was interrupted. But you didn’t hear me complaining. We stripped off the wet blankets, sheets and pillow cases. I wiped off the ladder and spot shampooed the carpet. We remade the bed and both boys finally went back to sleep. Oscar now sleeps with a bucket on his top bunk and Leif— he sleeps with one eye open. Waiting for next time.