Oblivious Husband

You may remember that a few years ago I managed to throw up at the dinner table at TGIFridays when Richie and I were eating with Pastor Dave and Kathy. I got choked and it triggered my gag reflex and suddenly I had emptied my whole dinner onto my shirt. Somehow, neither Richie, who was sitting right next to me, nor Pastor Dave, who was sitting across from him, even noticed. And it was a fairly drawn out process. Richie finally happened to look at me and see me, teary eyed, clasping a dinner napkin to my chest, and he asked if I was OK. Long story short, it sucked.

Well, I was reminded of that incident this morning. Due to some minor health issues, I have been on a couple medications this week. One is an antibiotic that must be taken with food. I had just eaten an egg, sausage, and cheese burrito so I could take the antibiotic. I walked into the kitchen and immediately got hiccups. My hiccups normally last a long time, but these faded just as suddenly as they had come. Then I felt kind of woozy. Well, I went ahead and took my antibiotic -- a gigantic pill whose awkward entry triggered my gag reflex. I managed to get it down without gagging further, but now as I stood trying to recover from the whole swallowing ordeal, I realized I was really feeling nauseated.

I began praying that I not throw up for two reasons: 1) I had just taken my pill and didn't want to waste it and 2) I had just eaten an egg burrito. See, I find eggs pretty gross in general, and the only way I can eat them is if they are mixed in with good things like cheese, meat, salsa, whatever the case may be. But the idea of puking back out my eggs might ruin them for me in any form.

Well, I puked anyway. Right there on the kitchen floor. I ended up on my hands and knees and every single bit of that egg burrito was right in front of me with more coming. And the only thing I could see was egg. Just egg, egg, egg. I was traumatized. So of course I kept puking and puking...

What you don't know is that Richie was literally 15 feet away from me, on the living room couch watching TV and surfing on his laptop. Our house is an open floor plan -- our kitchen looks full into the living room. And as I lay on the floor retching and watching my already shaky relationship with eggs go out the window, I fully expected Richie to come running to my aid.

Nope. He had no clue. He remained on the couch surfing the net, completely oblivious to the drama unfolding behind him. By now the dogs were closing in and you know what they were about to do... Between gags and coughs I would yell at them to get back. But Richie didn't notice this either.

I thought I would never be done, but at last it was over. Saying nothing, I rose from the floor and went for the paper towels to begin cleaning up. I heard Richie chuckle over something he was watching on Youtube. I said nothing. I just didn't know what to say. "Honey, you just missed me throwing up...again." ??

After I got the floor clean and everything disposed of, I finally broke the news to him. I think I just said, "Richie, I just threw up...right there...in the kitchen floor." He seemed mildly surprised, saying that he had thought those gagging noises were somehow related to my hiccups. So he actually had heard it this time, he just didn't interpret correctly.

It was over as quickly as it happened and I made toast. This time the pill stayed down.