By JohnnyBallGame on 15:13:32 12/04/08
I wanted to post this last week but didn’t have an opportunity. It fits in with the season and my errrr….reputation nicely.
In 2000, my wife and I drove to Illinois to spend Thanksgiving weekend at my sister in law’s house. My wife’s parents and her other sister’s family flew in from New York to visit as well. What did my sister in law do to welcome us? She nearly kills us all via food poisoning is what.
Being the brainiac that she is, she decided that it was a good idea to cook a stuffed turkey part of the way through the day before Thanksgiving and to finish cooking it on Thanksgiving Day to save oven time. Unfortunately, she didn’t let us in on her strategy until it was too late.
I’ll admit, it was one of the moistest turkeys that I’ve ever eaten. It wasn’t until after we all finished eating and complemented her that she told us her of her cooking method. My blood ran cold. I know a little about food micro, and the death potential of the stuffing dawned on me immediately. Unfortunately, the stuffing was as tasty as the turkey and I ate more than my fair share.
I’ve suffered a beat down from food poisoning before, so I immediately went into panic mode and tried to be proactive and rid myself of the potentially noxious food by sticking my finger down my throat and puking. No luck. I tried to force it out by jamming my stomach over the vanity in the bathroom. No luck. Had I been an Ozone OT’er then, perhaps visualizing Meat in a CFM & Dale sangwhich would have induced enough nausea to do the trick. But alas some inspirations arrive to late. I don’t know how super models do it.
Fortunately, my wife didn’t eat the turkey or stuffing. She is a hater. Nearly everyone else did. I warned them of the potential disaster looming, but they didn’t listen. Call me CassandraBallGame.
Anyway, I tried to enjoy the rest of the day, but I knew I was in trouble. My wife thought I was being overly dramatic when I got online to check out of network urgent care insurance coverage after the ballgames had ended.
It started at about 3 in the morning. Nausea and diarrhea built in intensity until I decided just to camp out in the basement bathroom.
Man was I sick. I vomited more than I ever have at any time in my life. The abdominal cramps were so bad that I lost control and managed to have nearly half the bathroom covered in puke. Then the diarrhea took over. The spells were so violent and frequent that by noon I thought I was going to die. I was so weak that I was forced to crawl.
Around 2pm, after a small period of inactivity, the urge to evacuate hit me so hard that I barely made it to the throne in time. I expelled so violently that I believe I actually shit my karma. I had nothing left. I was so completely drained that I sat on the toilet, leaning against the vanity to hold myself up. I remember singing hymns to comfort myself.
I must have passed out, because I woke sometime later to the sound of humming. Apparently the rest of the house was sharing my fate and the other bathrooms were occupied, because the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was my father in law squatting on a 5 gallon bucket in the bath tub, humming the same hymn that I was when I passed out. I have no idea how long he had been there, but he apparently was as bad off as I was, as he had jettisoned all attempts at modesty and sat there without a stitch of clothes on. Trust me, you never what to see your father in law this way. Shudder.
That’s the last thing I remember clearly until I woke up in a hospital bed sometime later. My father in law, sister in law and I were all so bad off that we needed IV fluids and antibiotics. I spent the next 3 days in a hotel room gathering the strength to drive home, as I swore I’d never step foot in that death house again. The only two people spared by the food poisoning were my wife and the offending sister in law. Everybody else (8 in all) got hit in varying degrees. My wife jokes that she expected to see a wagon pull up outside and to hear someone shouting “bring out your dead, bring out your dead”.
You want to know the best part? My dolt sister in law still complains to this day about the kool-aid stains that my young niece and nephew left on her living room carpet after puking there. My father in law and I have never spoke of the incident.