ACCIDENTAL HOUSE GUEST

Being a house guest and trying to fit into another family’s schedule is, to say the least, stressful. Thankfully, I bring energy bars so I can eat whenever I’m hungry. Being hypoglycemic, I’m always prepared.

I also bring a flask of tequila. Never know when I might need a shot.

Then there’s trying to fit my irregularity into the family’s regular schedule of morning showers, evening baths and brushing teeth. Not even my own package of wipes could make that flow easier.

But then, the night before leaving for home, the worst, worst, WORST thing to happened to me. I got sick.

I’m talking the body releasing its contents kind of sick.

I laid there on the hard, lumpy pull-out bed wondering if dying would feel worse when I felt movement. Outward movement in both directions!

Racing off the lumps, I whizzed past the 6-year-old pajama clad twins, and “made it” just in time. Whew! Thankfully, whatever ailed me was out of me in one fell swoop.  

Getting back in bed, wondering why in the hell did this have to happen to me, I was at least thankful that the worst was over.

Not!

“Lulu is sick,” my friend said the next morning coming into the bedroom I was staying in.

Lulu is my host’s fat English bulldog.

“She ate something,” my friend continued.

“Oh, too bad,” I said looking for the underwear I threw on the floor last night. “Maybe she has what I had last night? Not that I know “what” I had.”

“My son said he saw Lulu sniffing around in your bedroom last night.”

“Really?”

Hmm? Where in the hell is my underwear? I looked under the bed. Behind the suitcase.

“Yeah, he said she sometimes gets into the twins stuffed animals and chews and eats them.”

Now I really wanted to find my underwear—my leopard thong underwear—because the bedroom I was staying in is the twin’s playroom filled with stuffed animals. Even if the dog hadn’t chewed and eaten them, I didn’t want the twins to happen upon my thong after I was gone.

“What are you looking for?” my friend asked.

“My underwear,” I answered, my eyes scanning a bin of stuffed jungle animals.

“You’ve lost your underwear?”

“Yeah, I changed them last night. Guess I was too sick to notice where I threw them.”

My friend just glared at me. Usually she and I will find things to make us laugh like loons.

There was nothing funny about this scenario.  

An hour later—SANS MY LEOPARD THONG—we were heading north back to Ohio.  

I just knew that in a day or two, my friend’s son was going to call and tell her either:  

1) the dog passed a wad of leopard print, or

2) his twins found a stinky leopard print thong in their playroom.

The twelve-hour ride home was tedious. Not even trying to come up with a title for my second novel could alleviate the stress of anticipating my friend's reaction when her son called with the news.

Thankfully though, the universe was on my side this time. When I was emptying my suitcase, I found my thong stuffed in a zippered compartment. Right then and there I vowed that the next time I go anywhere, I’m staying at a hotel.

No matter what the price, it’s worth it!

Always, Em-Musing