husband support...

I have gotten behind posting some stories, because for some stories I really need to be in a "bloggy" mood. We'll see how long it lasts, because I need to record these before I start forgetting details. Warning the following story is heavy on a certain bodily function that might be offensive to some. This is first and foremost a family journal so I am recording it, but you don't have to read it =)!

Last month Kenneth and I attended a wedding for one of his friends from work. I had been feeling a little under the weather and my stomach was pretty upset. It was one of those rsvp kind of shindigs and I had gone to a lot of trouble to schedule an actual babysitter(as opposed to finagling one of my brothers to do it for a pint of ice cream) and the groom really is a good friend of my husband...so I decided to buckle down and go. The whole way there I groaned to Kenneth about my stomach and an unfortunate side affect of the illness that in my family we call "flu burps."(obviously not the medical terminology but we just barely got a dr. in the immediate family).

Flu burps are not your average ordinary burps or belches. They are not due to swallowing air with food or drinking carbonated beverages...in fact as far as we can tell they are not related to anything....but they are without a doubt the stinkiest thing that could ever come out of your mouth. Not only are they stinky, but they are persistent, every minute or two out comes another one(I am sure they are the origin of the phrase "silent but deadly"). It is NOT a pleasant condition, and I was bemoaning this fact to Kenneth. Now my sweet husband in the drivers seat had never heard of this condition(possibly due to the extremely scientific naming of the disease =) and had a stuffy nose, so he really was not very sympathetic at all(this is the same man who told me that morning sickness was all in my head because I had found out I was pregnant...that was the first pregnancy and he never made that mistake again).

We arrived at the wedding and were seated towards the back...not a bad deal considering how potent my burping potential was...then Kenneth saw his boss/good friend from work a few rows up. Not asking my opinion he jumped up to move us over by them. Unfortunately the only space was beside this man's wife...which means I ended up sandwiched between this poor woman and Kenneth. At this point I became a little desperate, in close quarters there was NO WAY for my condition to not become incredibly and horribly obvious. I held a hurried and whispered conference with Kenneth expressing my concerns for the well being of the woman sitting beside me. My sweet husband gallantly volunteered to let me turn my head into his shoulder to relieve myself and he even said that he would pretend that it was him. WOW! What a guy...he was earning some serious points! This seemed like a workable idea to him because he did not really believe that I was in that bad of a condition...he was congested and had not smelled anything to this point. To me, I was satisfied because I figured that he had been exposed in the car on the way over and if it didn't bother him then fine. The moment of truth came and I quite suddenly had to turn into his shoulder without having the time to warn him...that was when he realized that 1) I had not been exaggerating...2) possibly I had been understating the problem. To my horror he started very visibly gagging and dry heaving and acting like I had very nearly killed him(hrmph! I certainly wish that I had he was being so theatrical about it). He of course thought it was hysterical and wanted to immediately lean over and tell his friend the "joke"(over my dead body). After that every time I would need his "assistance"(didn't really have any other options) he would make a big show of holding his breath. Hmmmm, did I say he earned points...change that to read...HUGE withdrawal from the emotional bank account! He has since retold the story several times, with great gusto, always portraying himself as the unsuspecting victim of a cold blooded murder attempt. Yeah, I feel sooooo bad for HIM! Maybe next time he will take me seriously when I say that I am suffering.