FF: That Time We Overdosed (Guest Post)

After I wrote my last Flashback Friday story, my cousin Paul insisted, "You've got to tell the aspirin story!"  

"I want to," I replied, "but I was so young, I only remember a little bit of what happened.  I need to ask my mom about the details."

Here's Paul's emailed response:

You really do not remember the baby aspirin story?  I do, in great detail.  

My mom was on the phone and we were hungry.  I do not remember who climbed up the counter and got the bottle.  It was probably Christie [It was, indeed, Christie.  She was a young 2, Paul was 3, and I was 2 1/2].  Christie chewed the bottom off  the bottle of baby aspirin and "shared with us".   The sharing took place on the steps of our mobile home (crappy wood steps).  My mom busted us and was NOT happy.  She called every one, I only remember poison control.  But Grandma showed up, my dad, and probably your mom etc.  

Me with Christie, our "supplier"

Mom did not have Syrup of Ipecac, so poison control told her to have us ingest soapy water to induce vomiting.  She started with Christie and she was kicking and screaming bloody murder.  When they tried to feed her soapy water, she went ballistic!  As you might imagine, the soapy water ended up in her eyes and further acerbated the situation.  

We took one look at how they were torturing Christie and took off.  If remember correctly, Erin went left and I went right.  I believe it was Erin's mom pursuing her and she was caught almost immediately.  I was chased by a less fleet of foot relative (grandma).  As a result, I was able to put some serious distance between myself and our antagonists.  

Unfortunately, my Dad had recently plowed the field in front of our house and my success in evading grandma led me to believe that I could divert my focus for a moment from running over the uneven ground, to checking on the scene behind me.  That one small glance rearward while traveling at top speed proved my undoing.  Of course, I tripped over a large dirt clod and went headlong into the dirt.  Stunned, I was quickly brought back to my senses when Grandmother pounced on me.  

She hauled me back to where the previously described scene with Christie was being played out in two stages.  They quickly subjected me to the same brutal treatment, which culminated with Grandma sitting on top of me while other "relatives" (I use that term loosely) poured what seemed like gallon after gallon of sudsy, acerbic liquid over my face.  Unfortunately, I do not believe that any real vomiting took place.  However, our eyes were red and swollen, our clothing sodden and our demeanors ranged form distraught to sullen.  Guess which one I was?

So Plan B:  The Emergency Room.  I remember that the morning at home had been crisp and sunny.  In the back of my parent's old blue LTD sedan the weather became more gloomy.  When we got to the ER they put us side by side on the exam table and gave us our own soda and a small plastic cup of syrup.  We were ecstatic!  Rarely, if ever, had we had our OWN sodas (lemon-lime Sprite, if I remember correctly).  Surely this was our parents' penance for their rough treatment of us.  The day just seemed to get better when they brought us our own sand buckets.  Who doesn't like presents?! 

But we failed to fathom the diabolical plans of the hospital staff.  Soon we were racked with violent spasms.  Followed by repeated and uncontrollable vomiting.  Did their cruelty know no bounds?  Let's just say that we left that ER weak, ashen faced, and markedly more wise to the ways of the world than when the day started that morning.

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I love Paul's description of the events of that day!  I only remember going to the ER and getting soda and "sand buckets."  I thought we were going to the beach!

I asked my Mom and she corroborated most of what Paul remembered and also added some great details.  For example, in addition to Paul, Christie, and I, my mom also had my brother, Sean, who was just over a year old, and she was very pregnant with baby #3.  My Aunt Nancy was also pregnant with her third baby.  To go to the emergency room, we all piled into one car (with my Uncle Rick).  When Rick arrived with two pregnant women and four tiny children, they had quite a difficult and embarrassing time explaining why all three adults had the same last name and lived at the same address, but were, in fact, two different families.

None of us suffered any lingering effects from ingesting the Baby Aspirin, and my mom and aunt made sure that from then on, they always had Syrup of Ipecac readily available.