A Suppository for Christmas

While I usually look back fondly on past Christmas memories, there is one in particular that I wish I could forget!

The year was 1982, it was a Christmas just like any other. The whole family gathered at my Granny Spencer's house to open presents and to eat. We sat around and ate by the fire, sang songs, and had a merry time. My Aunt Patsy made some delicious Christmas candy, her famous (now infamous) chocolate covered peanut butter balls. We ate those things like they were going out of style. I also ate a bunch of chocolate covered cherries too. Too soon, the festivities ended and we all parted ways.

I started feeling funny in the car ride back home. My stomach was kind of churning and I felt nauseous. I figured that I ate too much candy. My sisters began complaining that their stomachs were hurting too. I looked up and saw my dad's eyes gazing at us from the rear view mirror. Mom turned sideways from her front seat and looked at us. "I think they have all ate too much junk," mom said. Dad agreed and said, "that candy will make you wormy, hee, hee." None too soon, we pulled in the driveway. We kicked the doors open and ran toward the house to try to make it to the bathroom. I didn't make it. "Blehhhh," all over the back yard. I felt dizzy, I hit the ground. "Blehhhhh," it was all I could do to hold my head up. My sisters were in the house hanging over the toilets. "Blehhhh," was ringing all throughout the house.

We threw up all night long. We threw up the next day. We threw up the next evening. I remember just lying on my bed wishing that I could die. I thought about aunt Patsy's peanut butter balls and I would hurl. I wanted to lay the blame on her. "Daggum that aunt Patsy!" "I'll never eat anything she makes again!" Of course, it wasn't aunt Patsy's candy that made us sick, it was a stomach virus.

My dad thought that he escaped it, but on the 2nd day he came down with it. "Blehhhh," could be heard coming from my parents bathroom. Loud moans and wretches rang through the air. If the CDC had heard about us, they would have quarantined our house. I guess God was watching over my mother during this time. Somehow she avoided getting the virus. She was an LPN at St. Mary's hospital so perhaps she had built up a superhuman intolerance to viruses.

It was the 2nd night, I was lying in my bed in complete darkness. I hadn't eaten a bite since the peanut butter balls. I had thrown up so much that there was absolutely nothing left inside of me. My door opened, it was my mother. "Byron, I've got some medicine to give you." I was weak, I held out my hand to take the medicine. "No, it's not that kind of medicine...roll over." Oh boy, just what I always wanted, a suppository for Christmas...

Don't ask me the purpose of the suppository, it doesn't make sense to me. All I know is that I got all better shortly after that, and before long I was eating again. It took me years before I ate another peanut butter ball or chocolate covered cherry though. Ah, fond Christmas memories...