Thanksgiving Flu By

Pour picked on Mom. She cried fowl over my last post. She called it blasphemy too. I have to say I was a little rough on her. She didn't think I would fail and she did say everything was very good. Did I mention how pretty she looked? I never brought up the fact that she made the gravy and brought h'orderves. Or the fact that she made me laugh the whole time even though she was freezing her ass off. Poor narrow ass that she is had to wear her jacket over her sweater all day. (insert collective "awe" here)

When I was little, I remember this very same woman keeping her bedroom window open even during the winter. Some times she wound up with snow piled on the window ledge and ice formed around the pane. Her children, blue-lipped and frozen toed, huddled together for warmth. In fact, Mary, Anita and Angie used to fight over who got to sleep with me because I was the roastiest, toastiest kid ever invented.

In the mornings we would be so cold we could see our own breath. Sometimes we ate breakfast with our winter coats on, but Mom, she'd be wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. Mom said, and man was she slick, "Well, if you kids would get dressed quickly for school, you wouldn't be cold."

After we would dress as quickly as humanly possible, we would continue to claim that we were indeed still freezing. That was the part where she would tell us to hurry up and eat our hot cereal, usually oatmeal or Malt-O-Meal. Poor Angie hated that hot cereal stuff. She would sit at the kitchen table, shivering and gagging.

Mom would say, "It warms you from the inside. Hurry up and eat it. Angie, stop all that gagging or you'll make yourself throw up. And don't think I'm letting you stay home if you do either."

I bet my mom had the fastest kids on the whole block getting ready for school.

Sorry about the flashback there. The point is, now that Mom has no meat on her scrawny bones, she gets cold easily.



Here she is torturing showing her undying love and affection to my son, Lane 1. Notice her warm jacket over her sweater.

The day after Thanksgiving is a dangerous day, not just because you might feel as if you were poisoned, but because of the madness at the mall. I would rather cut off my own arms and beat myself to death with them than go shopping. The news stations told me fighting for the best toys began bright and early Friday morning. As I watched the TV, Mr. Lane was hurled over the toilet asking me what I put in his food.

As I watched, I thought, "I don't get that. I know my family partakes in a lot of the commercialized traditions of Christmas, but I would never harm anyone, or trample anyone to get a toy for one of my kids. They are my kids. They will love me no matter what gifts they receive."

"Oh God!" He cried from the bathroom. "Lois. Lois! Hurry!"

I strolled in there with my fingers pinching my nose shut like a child would.

"Can you get me toilet paper?"

"Sure."

He was sick all night and all of Friday. Trust me when I say, he is the biggest whiner in the history of ever, when he is sick. Besides claiming he was going to die, he blamed me for his sickness. He not only said I poisoned him but gave him bad food with Botchulism, e coli and the bird flu.

I called my mom to tell on him. "Well, I wasn't going to say anything because Anita asked me not to. But she threw up last night."

"Great! I killed my family for Thanksgiving."

"No you didn't Lo. Let's think about this. What did the two of them eat that no one else did?"

She and I went through the menu and discovered there was nothing that just the two of them had. Anita got sick one time, Mr. Lane was up all night getting sick. As I was on the phone with her, I went to check on him. He spiked a fever. In a twisted way, I was relieved.

"It's just the flu Mom. He's running a fever. Go call Anita and see how she is doing."

"I just talked to her. She is fine today. She only got sick that one time last night. She thought hers was brought on by stress."

What I, for a tiny moment thought was my fault, turned out to be the stupid flu. I can't tell you how happy I am that it was just a 24-hour bug.

Thankful.

---

Here are some tidbits my brain forgot to mention because my head was in my ass. Yesterday was my brother in-law, Elvis' birthday. That's Anita's old man. So happy birthday to him!

Tomorrow Anita goes in for surgery to get the infamous lump removed. Please send her your well wishes so that she remains titastic.

Then I got these lovely gifts that I neglected to mention. Don't you just love getting for no good reason gifts? I do. My mom bought me a Bunn Coffee Maker. Mine was eight years old and on it's last drop. She also, for no good reason, bought me the down comforter I've had my eyeballs on for a decade.

Then my friend Anna sent me a wonderful book. And good buddy Hoss sent me a sweatshirt from his home state. I love my for no good reason gifts. Thanks a bunch you guys!

More stuff my brain didn't expel, coming soon to a blog near you.