Butthole is my pet name for my brother Sal. He turns 35 today.
Before you go off thinking I am an awful sister, please know that he has equally rough sounding nicknames for me as well. I will not list them here as I do not want to change the setting on this blog to 'Adult Content'. Anyway, it's all done out of love, so it's coolio.
Sal and I are only a little over a year apart, so much of our growing up was done side by side. Over the years, that has woven a lot of great stories into the fabric of our sibling history together.
To commemorate Butthole's big 3 - 5 birthday, I think it is only right and good to tell the Fishtailing On A Chicken Chunk Into A Vomit Puddle story.
Every winter when Sal and I were elementary school aged, it seems we would get the stomach flu. Of course, once one of us had it, it was not long before the other was to fall victim. This particular bout had beaten a path to my GI tract a day or two before Sal's. By Sunday evening, I was feeling better and ready to eat dinner. As my dad makes our plates, Butthole sits down at the table claiming he feels better too. Forgive me for not remembering everything that was on the menu that evening. As the title of this story states, there was definitely chicken, and you are about to find out why I haven't been able to forget that.
Sal starts shoveling food in his pie hole in his usual sloppy, too fast fashion. He then stops to open the cranberry juice. We were one of those families that didn't get soda unless it was a special occasion. Even juice was semi-rare, but my dad believed in cranberry juice so it would grace our table from time to time, when the grocery budget allowed.
Now there is a little blur in my memory here.......but next thing I know Butthole is yacking all over himself -- at the table!! His weepy, pitiful puking has apparently immobilized him and he is stuck in his chair. My dad is aggravated, asking him why he didn't get up if he didn't feel well. He just sits there, whiney and yacks again, covering the edge of the table in front of him and the cap to our beloved cranberry juice. That relegates us back to milk until we can afford non-puked on juice. Jerk.
My dad finally carts Sal off to the bathroom and I help my grandmother start to clean up. As she clears the table, my dad calls to me to get the bucket and the mop.
I don't know if I was supposed to take that instruction as my father telling me to clean up the puke puddle Sal made on the floor next to the table, or if I was just supposed to get it out for him to do. Call me an over achiever, but I thought my dad was peeved enough and I better had just clean this mess up, so I filled the bucket and started to mop.
It looked like Chicken A La King and seemed to have spread everywhere. I was trying to attack it from the sides, and soak it up with the mop. This is my first foray into puke mopping, so I have no idea how efficient I was being. I do know I had my fire engine red highwater school pants on. Shut up -- it was the 80s you haters!
Here's where it gets really messy: My shoe caught a lone chicken chunk off to the side of the puddle and I started to slip on it. Before I can even figure out what is happening, I am in a slow motion slide, doing the splits towards the Chicken A La Puke my brother made. I am using the mop to try and stabilize myself against full contact, but it's no use. The leg sliding on the chicken chunk goes right into the vomity depths of the main part of the puddle, while my back leg ends up kneeling in an outer edge of it. Good times.
All cleaned up and in his jammies, Butthole comes back into the kitchen just in time to see me trying to lift myself out of the mess without getting more puke on myself. Of course, there is no greater elixir for GI health than seeing your sibling thoroughly humiliated.
I survived. Despite picking up some chicken chunks in the aftermath, my bad ass red pants pulled through too, and I think we went in to another school year together.
Obviously Butthole survived, and we will celebrate his birthday Monday.
Good times. We laugh because it is disgusting. We laugh because it is true.
Yo Bro -- you make 35 look fabulous! Much love to you!
Happy Birthday!
d.
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