Little did we know what wonders were in store for us...
-------------------------
The evening before we left, I found myself watching old Batman episodes with the girls on YouTube. During the scene where a gigantic fake felt spider catches Robin in some sort of fishing-net-sized web, Dos asked us to pause the show and excused herself to the bathroom.
The rest is history.
Stomach flu is a horrible thing to have personally. It's worse when half a dozen people get it. It's a nightmare when it hits everyone in a daisy chain effect - and you're far from home.
We finally decided to go anyway the next morning. Only one of us was sick, right? My wife really wanted to see her new niece and have a chance to catch up with that entire side of the family. Plus, if we DIDN'T go, everyone would end up being fine. That's how these things work.
The trip was going decently well until Victim #2 was struck in Wisconsin. The staff at CVS would have been dismayed to learn the true use of the Toy Story Easter bucket we paid for as we ran back out to the car and resumed the trip.
Victim #3 decided to wait until the dead of night at a Super 8 in Janesville. The poor little guy spent most of the night awake—and since we were all stuffed into a 10 ft x 10 ft holding cell together—we all did.
The next day we arrived in Minnesota, exhausted but relieved. We had agreed to stay at a hotel for a while instead of crashing my wife's sister's house and spreading our family plague.
The three recovering victims hung out at the AmericInn hotel, watching TV and lounging around. A couple days passed and we began to breathe easier. The virus appeared to have died out. We had tempted fate and come to a draw.
We had some fun at a park with the cousins, and even ventured a visit to their actual home.
Victim #4 was my wife. She spent the next 24+ hours in agony, alone in the hotel. She was hit the worst and really was out of commission for the next few days.
The time came for all of us to face the reality of a return trip. Kids bounce back fast and by that time, the illness was just a happy memory for them.
I was feeling nearly invincible by this point. If I hadn't contracted the bug during a week of close quarters in the car and the hotel, I was pretty much good to go, I reasoned.
States fly by in the rearview mirror and we neared home. As we slowed to a halt in a Chicago traffic jam, that unmistakeable feeling dawned on me with all its fury: I was going down for the count, right there on the highway. I was Victim #5.
A quick perusal of my road atlas bore the startling news that there was not a rest area anywhere in our near future.
-------------------------
Late that night we were all safe at home, relieved. I lay on my back on the floor in our darkened living room and smiled weakly through the cramps, knowing that the Michigan Welcome Center would never be the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment