It was early morning, and I had just come upstairs from my basement apartment when my daughter made this request of the five-year-old who was sitting on the sofa with his toes in his mouth. Considering the state of his toes—or anyone’s, for that matter—the request was reasonable, yet I was highly impressed by the boy’s elasticity. With more training, the kid might really show some talent. After all, how many of us can put our toes anywhere near our mouth? For a moment I envisioned myself as a modern-day P.T. Barnum, touring the country with “The Amazing Shape-Changer,” raking in the money while John wiggled his body into wondrous contortions.
This vision disappeared when I realized several of the children were sedately lined up on the two sofas. This configuration was unusual. On most mornings, once they’ve waked, the kids are all over the place, drawing at the kitchen table or rolling around on the furniture of the den. But this morning the eight-year-old, Annie, lay on her back against the arm of the sofa, her face pale and waxy, as if the Grim Reaper stood at her elbow. The six-year-old, Mary, was holding a plastic bucket in her lap. The three toddlers were already recovered from their bouts with the illness. The eleven-year-old, Michael, was absent, but he too had thrown up during the night.
When sickness comes to a house containing ten children, the state of one’s health becomes a little dicey. Think of a medieval village circa 1349; the Black Plague has entered the streets and before you know it that spooky guy with the hoodie and the scythe is knocking people down left and right, the church bells are dolefully tolling, the carter is crying “Bring out your dead,” and the death wagon can’t haul the bodies away fast enough.
Okay, okay, I know. It’s not that bad here. But those of us who are well, who haven’t spent the night with our head in a toilet, are taking precautions—washing our hands, using paper towels, ducking the coughs and sneezes of toddlers—and studying each other out of the corner of the eye to see who will next succumb to the invisible bug.
Earlier this week, both Mike, my son-in-law, and Michael developed chest colds. The infection for Mike came with a massive headache, keeping him home from work for several days. Michael managed to go to school—I am his driver, and on Friday he sounded so awful in the car that the consumptive poets of the nineteenth century came to mind—so he is now suffering the double whammy of the chest congestion and the bug.
And it’s only November. Early November.
Different precautions have occurred to me. Wearing a surgeon’s mask might help, but I drink too much coffee throughout the day to make that practical. Garlic around the neck might ward off a cold, but it would ward off everyone else as well. I like chicken soup, but would likely start clucking and sprouting feathers before spring arrived. Vitamin C I can do, though in this situation that remedy seems insufficient, like storing up a canteen of water and a few cans of beans as preparation for some enormous natural disaster.
The thin floor above my apartment allows me to hear the voices of the children, and as I finished that last paragraph, I heard Carolina, the four-year-old, call out to her daddy, “Now John’s sick! He just threw up in the toilet!”
And it’s only November. Early November.
When sickness comes to a house containing ten children, the state of one’s health becomes a little dicey. Think of a medieval village circa 1349; the Black Plague has entered the streets and before you know it that spooky guy with the hoodie and the scythe is knocking people down left and right, the church bells are dolefully tolling, the carter is crying “Bring out your dead,” and the death wagon can’t haul the bodies away fast enough.
Okay, okay, I know. It’s not that bad here. But those of us who are well, who haven’t spent the night with our head in a toilet, are taking precautions—washing our hands, using paper towels, ducking the coughs and sneezes of toddlers—and studying each other out of the corner of the eye to see who will next succumb to the invisible bug.
Earlier this week, both Mike, my son-in-law, and Michael developed chest colds. The infection for Mike came with a massive headache, keeping him home from work for several days. Michael managed to go to school—I am his driver, and on Friday he sounded so awful in the car that the consumptive poets of the nineteenth century came to mind—so he is now suffering the double whammy of the chest congestion and the bug.
And it’s only November. Early November.
Different precautions have occurred to me. Wearing a surgeon’s mask might help, but I drink too much coffee throughout the day to make that practical. Garlic around the neck might ward off a cold, but it would ward off everyone else as well. I like chicken soup, but would likely start clucking and sprouting feathers before spring arrived. Vitamin C I can do, though in this situation that remedy seems insufficient, like storing up a canteen of water and a few cans of beans as preparation for some enormous natural disaster.
The thin floor above my apartment allows me to hear the voices of the children, and as I finished that last paragraph, I heard Carolina, the four-year-old, call out to her daddy, “Now John’s sick! He just threw up in the toilet!”
And it’s only November. Early November.