June Cleaver

I've been sick all day.  Like, on-the-couch-lie-around-and-do-nothing-sick.  You know, the kind where your skin hurts and your head hurts and you feel like throwing up would probably make you better but you are also trying to avoid throwing up at all costs and you want to get things done but you know that if you move AT ALL you'll throw up anyway thus foiling your intrepid efforts not to in the first place?  That kind of sick.

I am usually the one who does the cooking around here.  I'm not good for MUCH else, but I can cook.  Which is fortunate for us, because, well, Brian can't.  And I don't mean "can't," as in, he hates it so much that he'd rather scrub the bathtub with his tongue than cook a hot meal, I mean CAN'T.  Like that part of his brain was affected by some horrific environmental toxin at birth, and developed with a shriveled leg, or something.

So, Brian left for class this morning and I stayed home and focused my efforts on trying not to puke.  This is a very specialized technique that I've had years to hone, as I don't have a very level-headed stomach.

Sometimes not puking is as simple as trying to confuse your stomach by throwing it off the trail--if you eat 2 or 3 TUMS, your stomach suddenly has to figure out how to deal with the data your tongue has just sent that you've just consumed some sort colored chalk.  It wonders why you've done such an odd thing, begins to question your judgment, and then starts to disregard anything else you try to tell it.

I've learned in my field-trials, though, that my gullet is gullible enough to go along with me anyway.  So I usually try to distract it.  Something shiny, like Facebook or YouTube, will usually get the job done; except that today, however, feeling nauseous was paired with a splitting headache, which made distraction by computing a poor recourse.  I found that an easy alternative was to distract it by sleeping.  (Note: Unconsciousness is a great defense mechanism in a variety of situations, not limited to severe nausea.  Try it the next time you slam your head on something real hard, I guarantee you won't feel a thing until you wake up!)

Time passed.  I was awakened by a noxious odor a little after noon.  It smelled as if our apartment had been taken over by 76 chainsmokers while I was sleeping, and that they were intent on suffocating me in my sleep by exhaling carbon monoxide and death directly into my nostrils.  I went to check the lock on the front door to see if this were true.  Locked.  So what was the source of these foul fumes?  I looked out the window to see if a car was on fire in the alley.  Nope.  Well, whatever.  I just opened all the windows and turned on all the fans and put a t-shirt over my face.  If I didn't already die in my sleep of hypoxia, I'd be fine now.

I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water (because you know how when you're sick, your lips dry up into a desert and no amount of chapstick can correct it because your dehydrated little body will just slurp it in through your pores and wring out every little drop of moisture within it like it's Gatorade anyway?)

Anyway, I drank my water, and in the brief moment that I had my t-shirt-respirator down from my face, I smelled the OVERWHELMING scent of charred EVERYTHING.  It was as if somebody had grilled out on the kitchen floor and forgot to clean up any of the charcoal, and then started their hair on fire just for fun and threw it in the pile.

And then I saw it.  I didn't even know how to identify it at first, so I waited until Brian got home to ask.

Me: Hey, did you come home for lunch?

Brian: Yeah.

Me: Oh!  What'd you have?

Brian:  Um... well... I heated up tortillas on the stove and had them with butter because I had to go to class right away.

Me: (SO THAT'S WHAT THIS THING IS WAS!)  Was... there a problem at all?

Brian: Well...um....THAT one didn't work.

So anyway, I'LL stick to the pearls and heels in the kitchen.  Brian "Ward" Cleaver is relieved of duty.