At 2:30 am one of the kids started to cry. Coach thought it was
Mini. 'It's me, Reggie. I don't feel good,' came the whimpering voice
in the dark. I hopped up and ushered him thru the maze of air
mattresses (we were down to two air mattresses as opposed to three
because we were now in the room with two queen beds, but still) to the
bathroom.
At first I assured him that he wasn't going
to throw up. I asked him what I always ask my kids when one of them
admits to me that they don't feel well. 'When was the last time you
pooped?' He claimed it was recent, and he was convinced that wasn't his
problem.
Our conversation was cut short. He puked
his guts out in the toilet, brushed his teeth, and hopped back into bed
and went right to sleep. Coach and I on the other hand found the room
temperature a little stuffy and the experience a tad jarring. We laid
awake for the next hour or so. There's nothing quite like sleep
deprivation after already being exhausted from traveling. Making this
unforeseen awake time even more awesome was the fact that our alarm was
set to go off at 4:30 am. We had an early flight, air mattresses to
deflate, kids to corral, and a cab to catch to the airport.
In
the morning, Reg told us that he was feeling much better. He and the
other kids ate what was left of the cereal. Dry. I couldn't pay any of
them to pour the somewhat sour milk on their cereal. Kids today! They
drank some juice, gathered their stuff, and sleepily staggered down the
hallway to the elevators. Our load was considerably lighter without
the extra huge bag with all of our food in it.
Reggie
stepped up to the agent. He answered a few questions, like 'Are you
Reggie Shenanigan? What is your birthday?' When this kid fears that he
is going to be in trouble or he is getting yelled at, he doesn't move
his upper body. He becomes very stoic and acts like a robot.
My
11 year old son then stepped to the side while in robot-mode. There was no
flailing, no doubling-over, no moaning. He simply bent his head over
the white grocery bag and vomited into the bag repeatedly. It was as if
this was one of the expectations of the TSA crew along with removing
shoes. Emptying the contents of your stomach.
Coach
was a few steps ahead of us. I motioned until I had his attention.
'Ask where the nearest garbage can is,' I ordered as I pointed to Reg.
Coach's face suddenly registered that his youngest son was getting
sick. I still had to present my boarding pass to the TSA agent. Reg's
quiet mode kept him off this guy's radar, so while my son stood holding a
bag of throw up near the guy's elbow, Mr. Clueless continued to grill
me on my name and my birthday.
With my boarding pass in
hand, I dug into my purse again. This time I emptied a plastic grocery
bag full of snacks into the purse and handed Reg the empty bag. The
agent working the x-ray machine waved Reg forward. Then he called out,
'Wait a minute. What's with the plastic bag?' He looked annoyed.
'Oh,
he was throwing up about 3 minutes ago, so I thought he should keep
that bag in his hand,' I explained. The agent blinked and waved him
thru.
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