Capital Q Makes Me Sick

            Before the sun crept over the mountains this sub-freezing morning, Zac had blown chunks and come to report.  At least this time, he made it to the tub and not just lost last night’s dinner on the floor.  Still working on getting him all the way to the toilet before he spews.  Don’t worry; I’m not going to describe the multi-textured chunks or acrid smell that filled the entire basement.

            Both he and I stayed home from church today, as my stomach wasn’t super excited about life either.  However, I did not hurl, though it gave me cause to think back about the times where I have missed something because I was sick.

            It hasn’t been many.  In my lifetime, I believe I have only called in sick to work twice, and one of those was while I was in college.  Go figure, I had a test that day, and my professor didn’t really believe I was ill, so I had my wife call him since I couldn’t speak without the breathing patterns of a de-masked Darth Vader.

            And I believe that I only missed seven or eight days of school from Kindergarten through MCHS graduation due to illness.  Now, I missed for other reasons, but those might appear in another post, so I won’t go into the details.  I’ll also plead the Fifth Amendment right here and now.  I think the statute of limitations has been reached anyway.

            It so happens that five of those school sick days were five in a row in second grade when I attended Wilkes Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas.  (We drove by where it used to be on a family road trip when I was sixteen, and the buildings had been turned into a dance studio.  I couldn’t even locate that when we passed through there this summer.)  Sidetrack derailed.  I was home and bored with Scarlatina, otherwise known as scarlet fever.  It was like an ultra-nasty sore throat.  I don’t remember the intensity of the pain or the difference between that and the other sore throats I’ve had other than all the down time and boredom that engulfed me.

            I remember feeling disappointed that I was missing school.  I believe it was Thursday or Friday of that week that Mom drove down to the school and talked to Mrs. Smith about getting some work to do.  What kind of geek was/am I?  I did all the math, reading, and stuff before He-Man had ended.  When Mom came in to check it over, she told me that I had missed an entire page of handwriting: cursive capital Qs.  I responded that all I had seen were a bunch of squiggly “numbers twos.”  Apparently, I hadn’t been paying attention the week before when the teacher had explained the nuances of the capital Q.  I thought they were stupid, and I told my mom what I thought.  I ended up doing them.

           However, and I believe this was a first for me, I decided that I didn’t like them.  After I had supposedly put the homework in my backpack to take back to school, I went back and erased all the Qs—I mean 2s—on that dingy handwriting practice paper with the blue lines.  As a budding writer, it was a matter of principle (although I couldn’t have articulated it then).  Mom never knew, and Mrs. Smith never said anything about them.

            And I still don’t use them.

            Ever.

            They make me sick, almost enough to call in to work tomorrow.

            But not quite.

Worst. Meal. Ever.

Today’s story comes from a piece I started earlier this year after I read “The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies” by David Lubar from the short story collection of the same title.  My students wanted to know about different foods I have tried: best chocolate, weirdest texture, hottest (like the story), grossest, etc.

I’m not really sure about the hottest thing I've ever eaten.  It’s possibly Dave’s Insanity Sauce, which my brother dropped into a dish of mac and cheese.  I cried brimstone for hours.  I don’t really go in for the super melt-your-teeth-out hot stuff, though.  I prefer flavor over potency.  That’s why I usually stick to milder sauces—the flavors are richer and enhance whatever they are added to.   But when it comes to stuff that’s painful going in as well as coming out, there is definitely one episode that stands out.

When I was serving as a missionary in southern Spain, my companion and I were working in the small pueblo of Andújar.   Through some acquaintances, we met an elderly woman named Conchita.  Her family had all moved away, so she was rather lonely.  We would visit with her fairly frequently and help her around the house or do her shopping as she was getting on in years, and life had not been very kind to her.  One day, out of the blue, she invited us over on occasion to eat.  We didn't even know she could cook as she had mostly been eating cold foods—ready-made packed foods or fresh fruits or bread.  That and the fact that her eyesight was going (quickly) gave us cause to be little worried.

Reluctantly, we accepted her invitation, and she immediately began planning a menu for us.  She set the lunch two weeks ahead.  Why so far off, we didn't know.  Maybe she had to wait for her pension to clear or for her new teeth to come in the mail, but whatever the delay, for the next few weeks, she would tell us of how she was preparing the best feast ever.  “Just like I used to,” she would exclaim.  And then she’d clasp her rosary and escape to some far off time only her mind could see.  We began to get a little worried.

The day of the appointment came, and we arrived at Conchita's apartment with a blend of anticipation and trepidation.  The table was only set for two.  When asked why she wasn't eating with us, she scowled and growled, “I've already eaten.  Don’t you know I can’t eat all this rich food I've prepared?  It’d kill me off for sure!”  Hesitantly, we slid into the wobbly hardback chairs.

As quickly as she could shuffle in, the first course was served: soup.  Not too bad, right?  Heh heh.  I wouldn't be telling this tale if it wasn't disgusting.  The soup was a lukewarm watery broth with lumps of overcooked spinach, not-so-cooked eggplant and some chunks of cold dried and salted fish—cod, I believe.  Elder G— spluttered as the first spoonful crossed the threshold of his mouth.  I wiped my eye and tie and shirt.  “Super delicious!” he pronounced.

My hand shook as Conchita turned to me.  “What do you think?”  I gulped it down, trying not to let anything touch my tongue on its way down.  I grimaced; hopefully, to her it would appear that I was smiling.  Gave it too thumbs up, and made a supposed-to-be-yummy sound.  Really, I was trying not to gag and spit.

We squirmed and swallowed for the next hour or so, trying our hardest to avoid drinking the warm gazpacho she sloshed together in a semi-clean pitcher.

When we couldn't bear any more, we excused ourselves as politely as we could (It still took about twenty minutes to get out the door.), and we headed home.

As we walked down the apartment building stairs, both of our stomachs audibly expressed their displeasure.  We glanced at each other knowingly, and without a word, we started moving double time back to our place.  Stream poured from my forehead, but it wasn't just from the heat or the pace we moved at.  The outward signs of my insides’ rebellion started to manifest themselves.  I burped and re-tasted the helping of landfill I had forced down my throat.  My stomach lurched, and I looked over at my companion.

Elder G— appeared worse than I felt: white face, glasses slipping, I thought he might faint on the spot.  Suddenly, he threw off his backpack and demanded the keys.  “I’m not going to make it!” he burbled, and he took off sprinting, leaving in in the dusty road.

Five minutes later I stumbled up to our fourth-floor hole-in-the-wall.  My pace had slowed to a crawl as the cramping gradually grew worse.  The front door swung in the light breeze.  Shoes, pants, and shirt littered the hallway.  As I took in the disheveled state of affairs, I heard a scream of relief coming from the bathroom down the hall.  I’m not going to mention what else I heard (or smelled).  I'll leave that to your capable imagination.

Let’s just leave it by saying that we didn't work much (or very far from our apartment) for the next few days.  And we never ate with Conchita again.