It happened at 1:30 in the morning. Because doesn’t it always happen in the middle of the night? I’d been asleep for maaaaybe two hours when I heard a cry for me accompanied by a coughing and gagging that filled me with dread. I jumped from the bed, still half asleep, and swung her onto my hip in a mad rush to the bathroom, all while chanting, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
We made it, but not before a foamy chunk of sweet potato splattered on my sweatpants and slid down onto the bathroom rug, milliseconds before her heel squished on it.
I looked at her foot; I looked at our brand new, cream-colored hall rug, less than a foot away. And I left my sweet, terrified daughter – while she was still heaving over the toilet – to roll up our rug and tuck it in a closet. I think I said something really loving like, “Hold your hair, honey! Be right back!”
What ensued the rest of the night was nothing short of a horror film.
Every 10 minutes, she’d heave over a bucket because she couldn’t make it to the toilet, even camped out on the bathroom floor. I’m sure you can guess who got to rinse out the bucket and spray it with sanitizer.
I’ve dealt with poop. I’ve cleaned all sorts of pee. I’ve even been thrown up on. But this, this surpassed all previous unpleasant smells. Every time I returned to the bathroom with a glass of water or a washcloth, I was assaulted with a wall of stench so pungent, that I vowed never to touch sweet potatoes or bread again. Ever.
When morning came, I stumbled through the day in a haze of exhaustion and shock. My daughter happily played LOL dolls, oblivious to the phantom vomit smells that clung to my nostrils.
With a distracted sniff at my shirt-sleeve, I decided to turn on my guilty pleasure – the Food Network. I swear Guy Ferrerri looked right in the camera with an evil twinkle in his eye. And then he did a close up of crushed tomatoes, splattering into a pristine white container. Chunky brown clumps of ground beef followed next, and I ran to the bathroom to splash cool water on my face.
At dinner, I plopped salads down on the table because it did not look or smell anything like a sweet potato. We were happily munching away until my husband stopped and sniffed the air.
“Smells like…” He paused, but he didn’t have to finish.
I knew.
I looked down at the feta cheese in my salad, and the sharp, cheesy smell I loved so much suddenly mimicked the sour smell of – you guessed it.
I even tried pampering myself with a brightening face mask, only to watch it slide in a brown, liquidy stream from my face to the sink.
So, I’m done. I’m throwing my hands up in surrender and calling it quits on being haunted by vomit at every turn.
And if I happen to have the faint smell of bleach clinging to me for the next few weeks, can you blame me?
