Abstinence: 101

With a title like, "Abstinence: 101" it is difficult to think of a first line.  Everything that I was thinking about writing sounded like the set-up lines for a series of crude "that's what she said" sorts of jokes.  Having said that, I want to assure you that I am simply writing today in order to be a benefit to society as a whole...and to make an obscenely large quantity of money.

I have never made it a secret that I am only writing in order to become rich and famous.  Oh sure, entertaining people is nice but Papa needs a new pair of shoes!  As of now, a year and a half since I began, I have made nearly twenty eight dollars.  Well technically I have nearly twenty eight dollars waiting patiently for me in an account that only generates checks when the total reaches $100.  But my three hundred and fifty year plan to become remarkably wealthy is coming along nicely!  (three weeks ahead of schedule I might add!)

Actually, I did have a hope for making a bit of money once and as odd as it sounds, the entire family being incredibly sick last week made me remember it...vividly!  I was once again the last man standing in a house full of sick people and the last time that happened I concocted a crazy plan.  I have told this old-time plan to a few people in my day and one of them said that it was the funniest thing that she had ever heard.  So here we are.

Way back when, when the kids were really little, another virus swept through the house.  It hit everyone...except me.  Sylvia was down.  Kristiana and Jacob were miserable.  I was exhausted.  And then 'it' happened.  In order to try to protect the kids I will not explain exactly which one 'it' happened to but I do need to go into a little detail.  I will just say that the kids were both old enough to get up and toddle off to the bathroom by themselves but, of course, when you are sick, all bets are off.  

It was late, I had probably been in bed for about an hour or so when I heard 'it.'  Any parent can tell you that there is a sound that will call you back from blissful REM sleep in an instant.  One of the kids was getting sick.  I wasn't even lucky enough, at this point, to lie there, fingers crossed, as we waited to hear, "....mommmmmeeeeeee!!"   Where I would then grin to myself, roll over, and give God a mental high-five for making "nurturer" be a large part of the female job description.  Honestly though Sylvia and I have a pretty good system and we were about 50/50 for when the kids would call out for either Sylvia or me.  No such luck tonight.  There was no way Sylvia was getting out of bed.  And if she tried to go take care of this particular situation, even on her best night, let's just say I would have been cleaning up a little more than usual.

Up I went.  Down the hall.  Into the room.  I heard, "I got sick." and then tears.  

"Don't worry sweetie (No gender clues here...they are both sweeties to me.  Especially when they are sick.) Daddy'll take care of it."

I did quite a bit of triage and was able to, with an ample supply of baby wipes and new jammies, get the poor dear into a newly sheeted bed.  Then my real work began.  

I bundled up the laundry and carried it to the kitchen.  I silently cursed, in an envious way, the people who have those large, deep, rectangular white utility sinks in their garages because I am convinced that this was truly what they were designed for.  And then I put the pile of bedding on the floor because I had mistakenly told myself, "I am exhausted, I will just do the dishes in the morning.  I need some sleep."  Now I not only had a situation that I needed to take care of, I had a situation that I needed to take care of before I could take care of the other situation.  It was a situation-full night.  I did what every red-blooded American man would do in this situation. I ripped off my shirt to show the giant "S" on my red and blue superhero suit! (internally)  Problem is, externally that action looked very similar to someone plopping down in a kitchen chair and putting his head in his hands.  In the desperate sleep deprived and slightly nauseated state I hate to admit but I did think, "I don't remember signing up for this."  And then it hit me.  THIS is what people don't know!  Hey!  I should fix that!

Not being known for thinking the same way as, well, anyone else in the universe, I decided to document my dilemma.  Yes, I grabbed the video camera.  Sylvia and I bought a video camera to capture life moments of the kids to show them later.  I thought this was one for the library.  Actually, what I thought was, if I could show this to all the teens in the world they would never have sex again.  I know, I know, quite a leap from doing laundry to abstinence but let's see if I can explain.

I set up the camera and started taping.  I was just narrating the whole time, telling what I experienced, as I took care of business.  I wasn't trying to be funny.  I was trying to be informative.  I grew up in the "Scared Straight" generation.  I saw what happened when they took troubled kids to prisons and had the prisoners tell them how it really was.  It scared the snot out of them.  I wanted to do the same thing...on a different level.  

I remember pointing in the air to try to show where the date and time would be in the corner of the TV screen.  I explained that everyone in the house was sick and that, even though I had just gone to bed a little while ago and needed to go to work in a few hours, I was up at this awful hour doing something that I never ever imagined myself doing...because I was a parent. I couldn't even see doing this for myself!  You see...I have yet to mention the punchline to my misery.  (Let me see how I can describe this without everyone yelling, "WHOA!!" and clicking away to check their e-mails.)  When a youngster gets sick stomach muscles contract to force the offending matter the opposite way up the throat.  These same muscles, as it turns out, are used to go to the bathroom.  In the case of a very young child who may not recognize that they were about to get sick...both actions may occur simultaneously.  Yup, you guessed it.  Both ends, as they say. 

I, in the interest of realism with a dash of sensationalism, described what I was going through in as painstaking detail as I could.  I didn't want to be gross but I did want to change kids' perceptions about having babies.  The way I saw it was that dolls that we give girls rarely cry, they never keep you from sleeping (unless they are named Chucky), and they never ever smelled like this!  I pointed out that I was using hot water and there was steam coming up from the sink.  I said something like, "Just imagine that this is stink you can see.  You can't even imagine what this smells like."  I also figured that when teens babysit or see their younger cousins it is always for a set period of time, it was generally not when they were sick, and there was always someone else who was ultimately responsible.  Not when you have your own child.  As my old boss used to say when assigning tasks or blame..."You're it baby!"  I ended my taping with some sort of closing that stated, "If you think this is gross or if you think that you wouldn't be able to handle this...don't do the activity that might make children be your responsibility!"

In the back of my mind I had worked it all out.  Sylvia would continue to pester Oprah until she finally created  the "Best Husband In The World" award, I would go on the show to accept my prize, and I would mention that I had this tape in my possession.  She would offer me thirty thousand dollars for it.  Sylvia and I could then afford to take the kids to Germany to meet their relatives.  I would be famous.  And on the back of my first book, under the picture of me holding a bubble blowing pipe and wearing a burgundy smoking jacket, it would say, "Jeff Garrett, sick kid laundry guy."

I think you know that it didn't happen quite that way.  Sylvia's innumerable pleas to create that award fell on deaf ears in Oprahland.  I was never on her show.  And I have a tape that is sitting in my closet that I couldn't even send to America's Funniest Videos because everything is digital now.  I suppose I could download it, somehow, to YouTube, and it would go viral, but since people on there only seem to seek to ridicule in their comments, I would not want to bring that kind of negative publicity to my poor kids.  I would however be willing to sell it to someone who offered me fifty thousand dollars (inflation).  The way I figure it, the kids could deal with a little ridicule while riding around in Daddy's new truck!