Avoiding Evil

Today I took several teenage boys from my church on a dude’s night out. We went to St. Louis Mills where we ate, raced go-karts, played laser tag, and played arcade games. We had 13 boys go and it was a blast, yet it did not prepare me for what would happen to me the rest of the evening. Once I got the boys back home at about 10:20 p.m. I stood out in the church parking lot waiting for some parents to arrive. I had told my nephew that I would take him home and so he was hanging out with some of the other youth as we were waiting. They started having these races across the parking lot to the flagpoles and back (we have a very large parking lot) and I should probably mention that my nephew had just finished chugging a 24 oz Sprite before the parking lot racing extravaganza. Parents come, church is locked up, alarm is set, and all is good to go. My nephew and I get into my car and head off down the road towards home.

I was getting ready to turn onto the overpass to get on the highway when I suddenly had a craving for a frosty beverage from Sonic and so I passed up the overpass and pulled into the restaurant. I do believe that this was divine intervention, which I will explain later, because at the point that I pulled into the parking lot of Sonic my nephew said that his stomach hurt and then about 2 seconds later he begins to vomit in my car. Now, we are not talking a little spurt of vomit as he holds his mouth and tries to get out; no we are talking about a full throttle, mouth wide open and a tidal wave of puke pouring out of this kids mouth. The raunchy smell of warm Sprite came over me as I sat there stunned at what was taking place before my eyes. When I finally got my wits together I unlocked the doors and told him to open the door and lean out to puke. My poor nephew, covered in his own chunks, leans out of the car and continues to lose his dinner in the Sonic parking lot.

I live nine miles away in another town, we are in the middle of Sullivan and the only place I can think of to go was to Kendall’s house. I should also mention that Kendall, my fiance, is having a girls sleepover at the same time that I had the dudes night out, but I decide that this is the closest place to go to get my nephew cleaned up and to get some of this puke out of my car. So I am racing through the streets of Sullivan like something out of 2 Fast 2 Furious when suddenly I hit the railroad tracks and he begins to vomit all over again. I am speeding through town, I’m trying to call Kendall who is not answering her phone, and my nephew is continuing to shower warm sprite and chewed up bits of this evenings dinner all over himself and my car. There was so much liquid coming out of this boy that it sounded like someone stirring a big bowl of spaghetti and yet I knew that there was so much puke already in my car that there was no point in stopping now.

I finally made it to Kendall’s house, pulled into the driveway, ran up the steps, banged on the door, and her mother answered. I very calmly said “I need Kendall, no others girls, no one else, I just need Kendall”

Her mother said, “Is there something wrong?” To which I replied, “yes, my nephew threw up all over himself and my car and I was wondering if I could borrow your daughter and maybe a few old towels that you don’t want anymore.”

She went and grabbed some towels and got Kendall and I went back outside to evaluate the situation. I tossed a towel to my nephew who began to clean himself off and then I peeked into my car, and at the moment that I physically saw the vomit, it was all over for me and I went running to the yard where I hacked and gagged and almost lost my dinner. I can’t handle the sight of this stuff at all. Two or three more times I came back over to the car to try and clean it up and each time I ran back to the yard to make a pile of my own. Unfortunately Kendall had to come out and clean my nephews puke out of my car. Did I mention that I have the best fiance in the entire world and that I don’t know how I ever lived without her? She got him some clothes to change into; then she knelt down at my car and began to clean it up. I came over to help a few times, only to run back over to the yard gagging. Had I not went to Sonic I would have gotten onto the highway and he would have done this while we were driving down I-44, which is why I considered the Sonic stop divine intervention.

If all this wasn’t bad enough, I get home at about 11:30 and began to clean out my car some more. There were a few chunks here and there that I was able to sweep up at a distance with our shop vac in the garage. I rolled down the windows, opened the doors, and left it out there to air out and dry. Then I went outside to check the furnace. We have one of those outdoor wood furnaces that heats the house and the hot water heater in the winter. My parents are gone for the weekend and it was slightly colder than I thought it was going to be so I needed to see if the fire was going. While I was out there I had a few papers I wanted to burn and so I opened up the furnace only to see a few logs left and a fairly nice flame burning. Next to our furnace is a big shed where we keep all the wood. I toss a big load of papers into the furnace and walk over to the shed to grab some wood to throw in the fire. I toss a couple logs in and go back for more. When I came back I was shocked to see a fiery inferno from Hades bursting out of the open door of the furnace and bright yellow flames shooting out the top of the smoke stack. In a panic I reached up and kicked the door closed and sealed it shut with the latch and immediately the flames stopped coming out of the smoke stack, but large amounts of smoke came pouring out. After a few minutes I thought to myself “this has calmed down now” and I proceeded to unlatch the door again. I slowly began to open the door when suddenly it blew open with the same fiery flames from Hades pouring out of the door and almost knocking me backwards, to which I kicked the door shut again, latched it, and said “to heck with this” and came inside. After much prayer I am hoping my house doesn’t burn down around me while I am sleeping tonight.

Now it is about 1:30 a.m. and I am just sitting here pondering my day and asking myself, did that just happen?