They Told Me There Would Be Tea

So. Usually I watch some TV on New Year's Eve. At least enough to see the ball drop. I've only thought minimally about my bucket list. Write a book. Visit every state. Go to Italy. Visit the Florida Keys. Spend New Year's Eve in Times Square. Basically, my bucket list is traveling.

I can't say why, exactly, I want to spend New Year's in Time Square. It looks miserable and freezing cold. I do not enjoy being miserable or freezing cold. I want to spend New Year's in Time Square the way people want to climb Everest. To say I did it. Not because I actually think the experience would be even slightly enjoyable. And Times Square seems a lot less strenuous than actually climbing Everest. And so, I turn the TV on and I watch the ball drop, thinking of a day when I can cross this particular challenge off my list.

This year, though, I never even turned the TV on. My middle son started vomiting again. He, at nearly nine, has never been known to throw up into a toilet. Or a trash can. Or, even, a bathtub. No. He just hurls his guts wherever he happens to be. It is as though he has no physical warning whatsoever. My oldest has been effectively throwing up into a toilet since he was three. Not Matthew though. He prefers the car. Or the staircase. Or, most recently, ALL OVER THE PANTRY. Let me explain that there is a trash can less than two feet away from the pantry. Still, my son decided to hurl all over two shelves and the floor of the place we keep our food. This resulted in Troy and me scrubbing our pantry on New Year's Eve. Meanwhile, Matthew threw up again. This time he got it into a bowl. But then he spilled the bowl all over the floor. You can't make this stuff up.

We cleaned barf. We cleaned the child. He was so very sad at the early end to his New Year's Eve when, at 10:00, we set up a bed for him in the bathroom, with a toilet directly to the right and a bowl directly to the left. I spent a little time with my sister-in-law, niece and nephew, who are visiting and then went to check on Matthew. He was fine but couldn't sleep because he was lonely and his New Year's Eve was cut tragically and unfairly short. The world was a mess, the year, a total loss. I told him I'd stay with him.

Eventually, he fell asleep and I went down to pour cider and holler, "Happy New Year!" And the whole entire point of this mess of vomit and Times Square drivel is that I completely missed the whole Mariah Carey Situation.

I did, however, catch up the next morning. Let me just say that the thing about Mariah Carey is you're never sure if she's trying to be funny and not quite getting there or if she's really and truly one of the biggest divas on the planet.

"They told me there would be tea. Oh. It's a disaster. Ok. Well, we'll just have to rough it. Imma be like everybody else with no hot tea."

There are so many gems there that I just want to thank Mariah Carey for giving me such amazing catch phrases as we move into 2018. I can hear the conversations now.

Troy: We're out of cereal.
Me: Oh. It's a disaster. Ok. Well, we'll just have to rough it.

Me: Can you change Will?
Troy: No hot tea.

I mean, I wonder where she thought this tea would be. She turns around to look for it behind her. This leads me to believe that it would have had to have been there BEFORE her first song. It was 8 degrees outside and it was reported that it felt like -6 with the wind chill. She sang for four minutes. #coldtea. Also, she is wearing only slightly more than nothing. She really looks like she's roughing it out there on the frontier, the way our ancestors did. It is as though, for a split second, she realized that she was a person just like everyone else who was standing on the streets of New York. An actual human, she is. Forced to sing another song and get paid a ridiculous amount of money before she could procure some tea for herself. Oh the great tragedy of it all.

Or, maybe she was just trying to be funny. I have no idea. I don't understand the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

I did, however, discover that Mariah Carey took the stage at roughly the same time Matthew spewed his guts all over my pantry. Twenty minutes later, when he was sitting on my bathroom floor, covered in his spilled bowl vomit, I went to him. His face was dripping with regurgitation. In my mind, though I never would have said anything like this to my sick child, I've rewritten the conversation between us.

Matthew: My life is over. The world is a terrible place. I am sick on New Year's Eve. I CAN'T EVEN at the injustice of it all.
Me: I'm sorry that you have to stay up here on the bathroom floor while the rest of us eat brownies and ice cream and watch movies and enjoy New Year's Eve. It's really a shame that you're throwing up again!
Matthew: (blinks) They told me there would be tea.