Was it my blatant disrespect and flippancy? Did my irreverence and mockery of that nasty of nasties: vomit, earn me a just and appropriate punishment?! If so, I will never again treat the subject of vomiting with such an uncouth demeanor….except for this one last time; just right now; this once.

On Tuesday, I posted my last Blog entry regarding the pukey natures of our children. Little did I know that the same fate was about to be dealt unto moi. I felt absolutely, perfectly fine in the morning. I did my usual Tuesday routine – took Matthew to preschool and then Zachary and I went to the gym where I partook in the fun-torture of sweat-dripping spin class. After class, I got showered, retrieved my youngest from the gym kids’ club, my eldest from preschool and then we drove up to my friend Rebecca’s house for a play date.

Rebecca and I have established a marvelous trend with our play dates. We fix an easy, kid-friendly lunch for the boys (four of them, when we’re all together), then once they’re happily playing, we sit down to a feast of gourmet deliciousness…and occasionally a glass or two of wine. Now, my two “Going Out Girls” – Rebecca and Larissa, with whom I go out dancing approximately once a month – have a delightful time mocking what a “light weight” I am. As Larissa says it only takes a drink or two and Jenny is “HILARIOUS on the sauce.” So, I guess this is a good thing. It means: a.) I’m a cheap date, b.) I don’t ever drink much or really ‘over my limit’ as my limit is so low, and c.) I make for an excellent Designated Driver as I can’t have anything at all or I lose my DD role. Though I’m not often allowed to be DD as I’m “HILARIOUS on the sauce.”

Back to Tuesday afternoon, Rebecca and I were off to a grand start – a delicious lunch and a glass of wine. OK, a glass and a half. That’s it. We’d been visiting for a couple of hours, when suddenly I started to not feel well at all.

“What’s the deal? Why do I feel so awful?” I asked Rebecca.

“I don’t know,” she said, “you haven’t even had two full glasses…you should be able to handle that much.”

And then, it hit me. Oh man, I’m going to be sick. I believe that I somewhat calmly said, “I think I need to go throw up now.” I got myself to the bathroom and WAZAMEE. I won’t go into the gory details, but let’s just say it was gory. This was a rated R – no kids under 17 allowed in without parents – kind of a vomit. It was a horror movie. I immediately thought of Zach and how he so calmly handled his rainbow puke incident. Oye.

I reclined on the couch for a little bit and then feeling better decided I better get us home. We had about 20 minutes on 405 during which I practically had my head hanging out the window like a dog, just hoping the fresh air would make me feel better. Zach fell asleep and Matthew was sitting ever so quiet and peacefully in the back seat while I fought my own personal hell in the front. I managed to get us to our exit and was about 3 minutes from home when I had to pull off the road into a gravel turnaround and get sick again…into the plastic bag we use for garbage in the car. Matthew, during my…uh ‘episode’, said, “Mommy, the bag is leaking.” Just what you want to hear.

We made it home, and I called Mike saying, ‘back-up, I need back-up.’ I got the boys in the house, 101 Dalmatians turned on, wiped up the car a little bit, and then got sick again…and again…and again..and again. I don’t remember the last time that I was sick like that. And I don’t want to. I don’t ever want to remember it ever again. (Good thing I’m documenting this for all eternity).

So, what was it? Was it food poisoning? Stomach flu? With the exception of Zach’s one random rainbow vomitous occasion, no one else has gotten sick (thank goodness!). Punishment for making a mockery of vomit?

And speaking of mockery, yesterday, Mike had the audacity to mock my puking skills. Like – you have to be good at vomiting! He said, “Yeah, you’re a terrible puker. The boys handle it better than you. They just puke, get it done and move on. You spend all this extra energy freaking out and kicking your legs and practically convulsing.”

“Well, I don’t like throwing up!” I cried defensively. “I mean, what am I supposed to do? It’s puke! Why am I so bad at it?”

“Woah,” Mike said, “are you offended because you’re not a good puker?”

“I’m offended because YOU said I’m not a good puker. I might be an excellent puker, it’s just that you have a low opinion of my puking skills, and that’s just not nice.”

“Are you really actually SAD that you don’t have good puking skills?” He asked.

“Um, I don’t know. Why are we still even talking about this and analyzing my puking skills?”

By the way, for the record, I’m an AMAZING puker. (OK, who am I kidding? I’m the worst puker I know. But I have many of other good and valuable qualities to make up for my lack of puking skills). I told my parents today how poorly Mike thinks of my puketasticness, and my dad said, without skipping a bit, “Yeah, you’ve always been bad at it.”

Fine!