Apr 292019
 

I don’t know whose bright idea it was to make the 4+ hour drive home from King’s Island on Saturday (more on that later), but that’s exactly what we did and it’s insane how exhausting the simple act of driving a car can be (or in my case, being the passenger who stays awake out of solidarity). It was around 2:30AM when we made it home, which is nothing for all those people with heavy social lives, going to the clubs and bars, etc. But we had been up since 5:30AM in order to get to the park around the time it opened, so yeah wow, that was a near-24 hour day for us.

Don’t even get me started on the lack of Sheetz in Ohio. I know they exist in some areas because they have saved our asses plenty of times on the way home from concerts in Cleveland, but the area around Cincinnati sucks and we had to settle on, oh my god just thinking about this is making me gag—SPEEDWAY. I felt so uncivilized! The only option for me was a veggie sub which is NOT WHAT I WANTED, I WANTED A WRAP but all their WRAP OPTIONS had MEAT IN THEM and there was nothing on the menu for a CUSTOMIZED ONE. Ugh! The guy behind the counter could sense my ire and asked if I needed help but you know what, I didn’t like HIS TONE so I said NO I DIDN’T NEED HIS HELP!

Then Chooch slapped his receipt into Henry’s palm and said, “TELL THEM HOW I WANT IT TOASTED” before running off the bathroom. So Henry tried to tell THAT GUY to toast it and the guy was all, “YES, IT WILL BE TOASTED” but Henry was like, “No, I mean, he wants it toasted afterward” and the guy goes, “No that’s not how we do it. We just toast the bread first and then put everything on it” and Henry said, “Yes, but he would like it toasted afterward” and the guy said, “BUT IT WILL MESS  UP THE INGREDIENTS, LIKE THE PICKLES…” and Henry was like, “HE KNOWS. THAT IS HOW HE WANTS IT.” Jesus Christ! We were telling Chooch about this later in the car, as he was eating his fully-toasted sub, pickles and all, and he shrugged and mumbled, “The customer’s always right.”

Usually, Chooch handles this himself. He completes his order, grabs the receipt, marches up to the pick-up area with confidence and yells, “EXCUSE ME, I’D LIKE TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT TOASTING MY SANDWICH.” Look, the kid knows what he wants, OK.

The one thing that kept me going was that my friend Veronica was sending me requests to her Instagram Lives from the Korea Times Music Festival in LA where LEE TAEMIN WAS PERFORMING. Guys, I was LIVING through her Instagram on that ride home, you have no idea. Henry thanks her too because every time one of her live videos would end, I would start screaming NO NO NO!! and the sheer volume of my voice did more for his alertness than any of those cans of energy drinks he was double-fisting.

When we got home, I barely brushed my teeth; kicked off my shoes; peeled the contacts from my eyes; collapsed into bed, still in my clothes and a face full of makeup. Did not even care.

Sunday was one of those days where I don’t even know why I bothered to change out of my pajamas because I felt like shit and pretty much figured I wasn’t going anywhere that day. I spent most of the day watching theme park vlogs on YouTube, still riding that high from the day before (Henry’s reading this and thinking, “Yeah right, she would be watching these videos even if we hadn’t just gone to an amusement park”–LOOK, IT’S HOW I RELAX, OK!?”) Having just ridden the Beast numerous times really reignited my wooden coaster (or “woodie,”  but you non-coaster fanatics wouldn’t understand, sigh) and so I started watching videos about that and then started pining for my old wooden love, THE VOYAGE in Holiday World. I began to wonder how the woodie aficionados compare the two, and then before I knew it, I had watched 19 POV videos of the Voyage (Chooch and I pronounced it “Voy-AHge”), at which point I launched into an impassioned speech about how much I love this ride and if I had to craft the perfect day in my head, marathoning this beefy grid of manly lumber (at night!!) would definitely make the cut.

Henry was giving back NOTHING in return, so I spat, “I’ll just wait for Chooch to come home. I can’t talk  to you about this. You don’t understand. You didn’t even ride it.”

Yeah, but you’re not just talking about it. You sound like you’re talking about a boyfriend.”

Ugh, I wish.

BAE.

Meanwhile, I was getting sicker as the day went on. My body felt really weak and I was shivering, and my stomach had that I’M ON A BOAT feeling.

As the day progressed, I started to wonder if I had measles. Maybe it’s because it’s very Another Day, Another News Alert About Measles lately? So I started grilling Dr. Henry about all things measles. I can’t google things of this nature–medical maladies, curious symptoms–because I will throw up and fall into a spiral of obsession and paranoia. But I needed to know things like “will I know if I have measles? Will it hurt? Will I die right away?” And then Henry started to talk about rashes and I was like, NO STOP TALKING ABOUT IT I DONT WANT TO KNOW! and then Henry was like GOOD LORD, GO TO BED. YOU FEEL SICK BECAUSE YOU BARELY GOT ANY SLEEP AND YOU ARE EXHAUSTED.

Oh ok Dr. Henry.

(Ever since he mentioned rashes, I have felt universally itchy.)

The one thing I recently read was about how adults who think they are vaccinated or perhaps never got the second shot, travel to measles-prone countries and then BRING IT BACK WITH THEM.

“Thailand and India are two countries on that list and Lauren from work went to both of those countries last year!” I hysterically screamed to Henry, who calmly said if she brought home a souvenir rash, and I wasn’t vaccinated, I probably would have contracted it a long time ago and you know, died.

This fretting continued on this morning because I got another news alert on the way to work and I want to fucking line up anti-vaxxers and run past them swinging an orange-stuffed sock. Fucking assholes.

I sat next to some nice man on the trolley who said good morning to me (like, no one does that on the T) and I had to pretend like I was a normal lady and not someone melting internally from maybe-measles.

At work, Carrie was like, “You could just ask your mom if you have all your shots…” so I did that, I texted her and it took her like SEVEN MINUTES to respond and all she said was “I think so.”

THAT IS NOT A YES.

Then I saw Lauren and flipped out on her but she was like “I promise you I’m fully vaccinated!” But then I think she started to get scared too when I mentioned THAILAND AND INDIA.

I was still dwelling on this by the time Henry picked me up for work.

“What exactly do you from with measles? A big fever? Do your bowels fall out?”

“Yes Erin, your bowels fall out,” Henry sighed.

I think I’m just going to go to the doctor and double-up on some vaccinations. Is it possible to over-vaccinate?

  One Response to “Long Drives, Toasted Subs, Measles, & Wooden Boyfriends”

  1. I quite enjoyed this whole post, but I wanted to say it’s ‘funny’ you’ve been obsessing about the measles thing, b’c I have too. In fact, I just went to the lab this morning and had my dr draw blood to check to see if I have an immunity to it, or not, as I too, am from that date range wherein some people only got one shot instead of two. Hopefully in a week or less I will know for certain one way or the other.

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