The month of November is National Blog Posting Month. This is my 5th year participating. This year, for thirty days, I'll be telling stories from some point in my life. Enjoy!
As a little girl, every few years the whole extended family made it's pilgrimage to Mecca....our Mecca anyway - Disneyland. Everyone who could, managed to make the long car ride from UT to Anaheim in one long caravan on the freeway. Driving to California wasn't always fun (there was this one time when my sister sat in the back of the SUV with the luggage on top of a cooler the entire drive to and from Disney) but it was just something that we did. I loved it because it meant that I could ride in the cars of other family members, not always with my parents.
Our pilgrimage was pretty predictable. Salt Lake to Barstow to spend the night and then Barstow to Anaheim for a few days of Disneyland. We'd regularly pass one another, signal to roll down the window and then ask the age old questions, "Did someone fart in your car too?" Man, that never gets old! On one of these trips, when I was somewhere between 8-12 (I honestly cannot remember my age anymore) I begged and pleaded with all involved to ride a leg of the journey with an aunt, uncle, and cutie pie little cousin, Chloe. She was probably 18 months old at the time and I just adored everything about her.
We got up that morning, ate our traditional breakfast at the McDonald's in Barstow that was build in an old train and loaded up in the cars. Most of us had to stop for gas at a station right on the edge of the freeway on ramp. I was buckled into the back with Chloe and we were singing songs, reading books, and just having a grand old time.
As we were pulling out of the gas station, Chloe started coughing. It seemed innocent enough, at first, but the closer we got to the freeway, the more menacing the cough became. It all happened in a matter of minutes, but as my uncle pulled onto the on ramp and started to accelerate Chloe's coughing went from minor to severe and she started to puke her guts out in the car.
Seriously.
I remember screaming, "Chloe is throwing up!" and then I did what any reasonable 8-12 year old would do. I unlocked the door and jumped out of the car. On the freeway. Brilliant.
The rest was a blur. My fear of puke brought me to tears and desperate to leave to leave the situation. My dad says he remembers seeing me jump out of the car and wondering what was going on. I'm not sure what all went down, but I didn't end up getting back in with my parents. I ended up riding with my grandparents and two of my uncles the rest of the trip. Six hours or so wedged between my grandma and one of my mom's brothers in the back seat of a Lincoln Towne Car, holding my grandmas hand and plugging my nose, hoping that the fart wars would end soon.
The fart wars lasted the rest of the trip.
My fear of puke is still very real. My fear of coughing however still stands greatest. When someone starts coughing (yes, even my kids), my Pavlovian instinct is to run because I'm pretty certain something may project out of said coughers mouth that probably resembles their lunch.
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