It started about 6 a.m. I awoke, thinking that the tingling in my stomach was the excitement of knowing it was almost time for the kids to get their Eater baskets. Ever since my daughter was a little girl, the Easter Bunny has left the baskets outside, because, quite sensibly, she did not want a giant rabbit sneaking in her room as she slept.
So I woke up and headed out to my car, where the Easter Bunny leaves the baskets each year and relocated them to the front porch. I was heading back to bed when I noticed that the tingle was growing. Easter excitement!
About halfway up the stairs, someone, from somewhere, punched me in the stomach. I did not see the person, but it was a well-placed punch that dropped me to a knee. Clutching the bannister, I steadied myself and made my way up two more steps when I was punched again. Note to self: Ask pest control company to spray for phantom gut punchers.
Eventually, I made it back to bed. I figured the best cure for such an ailment was to curl in the fetal position and moan. This failed to wake my wife. Or, more appropriately, failed to wake her enough to roll over and tell me that I was the sickest anyone had ever been.
Eventually, I was able to drift back to sleep, despite having the worst pains anyone on the planet had ever endured. After a short while, my kids came in and decided to jump on the bed and announce that it was Easter. This was enough to wake my wife. She looked over and said, "Uh, are you OK?" I am not positive, but I think she might have been tipped off that I was slightly ill because I was clutching my stomach, rocking back and forth making growling noises.
I composed myself long enough to tell my wife - the woman who spent roughly 4,000 hours giving birth to our children - that I was experiencing the Worst. Pain. Ever. She responded by taking the kids downstairs, which would have been a really callous response had an alien shot out of my stomach a short while later. Which it didn't. Of course had it shot out of my gut, I am sure she would have felt guilty. Or, just to one-up me, she would have said something snarky like, "Oh, yeah? Come see me when TWO creatures come out of you." Always a competition.
After a little bit longer in bed, I noticed that the stomach cramps seemed to be subsiding. Hey, I thought. Maybe this was a temporary thing! Maybe I'm getting better! Hey, why are the cramps moving ... up ... up ...
Let's skip to the part where I am underneath a bath mat, sweating profusely, feebly hitting my hand on the ground in hopes that my wife will hear me and come find out that I actually am somewhat sick. As an added touch, I whispered, "Jeeeeeeennnnn ... " and reached my hand in the air. Quite dramatic.
Eventually, my daughter came into the room, presumably to use the bathroom and not to save me. "Daddy, why are you under the rug?" "Get ... Mommy ... " was all I could muster.
My wife came in and agreed that I had seen better days. We had several big Easter plans for the day, including Easter lunch at my parents' house and a neighborhood cookout that evening. I told my wife that I would be OK and that I would fight through it and grace everyone with my presence. I was a gamer.
"Uh, don't take this personally," she said, "but no one is going to want be around you."
I took it kind of personally.
By the end of the day, the breakout of my day was:
-- 49 percent: on bathroom floor, quivering, groaning
-- 49 percent: in bed, quivering, groaning
-- 2 percent: Walking downstairs to make sure anyone who was there knew I was quivering, groaning
When I woke Monday morning, I was pleased to find that I had healed. The only pain was from lying down for the majority of the previous 30 hours, which sounds like it would be fun until you do it. My wife asked me how I felt, and I told her that I was fortunately feeling much better. "I guess it was just a one-day thing," I told her. It's nice when the pain goes away quickly. Like after you give birth, right?
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