Nobody vomits like a kid vomits.....
About five years ago, our eldest daughter - who was about two at the time - came toddling into the living room looking decidedly iffy, came up to me and said "Daddy I think I'm going to be ......", and then proceeded to blow chunks in a manner usually reserved for people accustomed to consuming 14 pints of guinness and a large vindaloo.... For some reason, I held out both hands, cupped in such a fashion as to catch the aforementioned liquid-laugh, little realising the phenomenal capacity of vomit that one so small can produce. Having reached overflow limit in a little over a second, I realised the futility of my actions, and deciding there probably wasn't a vessel in the house big enough to contain the tide of puke emitting from my offspring, I decided to abandon my original plan, and get her to the bathroom as fast as was possible....
Dumping the vomit I'd already collected onto the floor (this didn't seem to present a major problem, as we'd only recently had all the carpets removed and laminate flooring put down throughout the whole house....a fact for which at this precise moment I was supremely grateful), I grabbed my infant vomit-tardis, turned her around (let's face it, as much as we love 'em, we don't want them puking in our faces...), and headed off for the bathroom.

And this was my undoing....

To get to the bathroom (it was a bungalow), I had to pass from the living room, through the hall, across the dining room, into the inner hall, and thence into the bog. We made it as far as the dining room before she upchucked in an even more spectacular fashion than previously. Unfortunatley, I wasn't aware of this fact until my bare feet made contact with it........did I mention the fact we'd recently had laminate flooring laid?

The resulting fall would have looked unbelievable even by cartoon standards. There was the running on the spot sequence - featured highly in Scooby Doo episodes where Shaggy tries to leg it but never seems to get anywhere - followed by the slow motion descent straight onto my backside whilst yelling "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo......!" in perfect synchronisation.
Somehow, throughout all this, I managed not to drop the author of my misfortune, and turned her round to make sure that she was alright. With hindsight, this wasn't one of my better ideas......yep, she barfed all over me....
The attempt to get up, and distance myself as far as was humanly possible from this waking nightmare, must have looked like an old Keystone Cops episode as I slid this way and that but couldn't find any purchase on what had now become a technicolour skating rink.
Fortunately, my wife was on hand to piss herself laughing at my dilemna.....did she help? Did she arse. She stood there shaking and clutching her sides as the tears streamed down her face, whilst I lay sprawled in the stuff bad dreams are made of, praying for God to inflict a prolapsed uterus upon her....

I can look back and laugh about it now, and my psychiatrist has told me that my bedwetting should stop within a year or two.....

(sorry about the length, but sod it....those of you who have an elderley relative, of whose will you are the sole beneficiary might want to take a few pointers from this....lubricated laminate floor, dodgy eyesight/ticker/hip....you work it out)
(Desolation Angel, Fri 20 Aug 2004, 12:01, Reply)