Funny story, or too much information...

I got told again today that my blog is too depressing.

So I'm going to tell a funny story.

I was going to write a longer post, so watch for it this weekend.

The problem with this funny story is, it may be too much information. So consider yourself warned. It's gross, and yet funny.

Thus:

For a while in the mid-'80s, back when terrorists hijacked planes to TAKE them somewhere, my Mother stopped flying.

Unfortunately, my grandparents lived in Florida.

Ever take the train to Florida? 24 hours, in a coach seat, a teen with bad knees next to a 6-foot, long-legged father. Mom's 5-foot-3, she never seemed to mind.

But Dad hated it, and I hated it, so by the third or fourth trip, he bit the bullet and got us those sleeper car chambers (like Pullman cars, but not).

Much more fun, and a whole half-bed to sleep on.

Except for the time I got sick. Normally, I got sick IN Florida - something to do with going from winter in Pennsylvania to warm and sunny, no doubt (we used to go the week between Christmas and New Year's).

But this one particular year, I was sick on the way. Mom gave me aspirin or something, but this was back when I couldn't swallow pills, so she crushed it, put it in yogurt and fed it to me.

OK, I don't know why, but I couldn't swallow pills. For years. I can now, barely. Gag reflex or something. Even the smallest pill gave me problems.

This becomes important later.

Anyway, there's a problem with Mom's strategy. Yogurt is part-dairy. And she put it into a mid-pubescent teen running a high fever.

So I'm in a compartment about the size of a small walk-in closet, puking all over the place.

Needless to say, they put me off the train. In Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

The first time I'd ever been to North Carolina, and my parents were taking me to the emergency room.

So they gave me some drugs to lower my fever (I forget exactly what I had, but it was more severe than the flu or something).

(We were off to a hotel for the night, to resume our journey the next evening.)

And then, when they were telling my parents how to treat me (lots of liquids, etc.) they gave me THE PILL.

It was the biggest pill I'd ever seen, about the size of a .357 bullet.

I looked at my Mother and said, "There's no way I can swallow that."

Mom, Dad and the doctor burst out laughing.

"You don't," she said.

It was a suppository.

(If you, like my 13-ish self, don't know what a suppository is, I'll give you a hint: You put it into a different orifice. Thus, TMI ain't just a nuke plant in Pennsylvania.)

Links:
• Rocky Mount, N.C.
• Amtrak's "sleeping accomodations"
• How to take a suppository

OK, another funny, and similarly themed story. When I was in college, my parents gave me, among other things, a digital thermometer, in case I got sick. You know, one of those plastic kinds, with the digital readout that beeps? They also gave me a box of plastic sleeves - which my friends immediately dubbed "thermometer condoms" - in case my roommate/friends/girlfriend needed to use it.

So one day, Ed asks to use my thermometer. I put the condom on it, give it to him, wait until he's had the thing under his tongue for about 30 seconds and blurt...

"Ed! That's a rectal thermometer!"

He spit it all the way across the room.