There are certain times in my life, like last week, when I’m particularly glad I wasn’t born several centuries ago. For starters, it would have been an even longer ride to Myrtle Beach–if you think traffic is bad going around Charlotte now, just think what rush hour must have been like with a toddler in the back of the horse-drawn wagon.
Second, if your toddler, unbeknownst to you, is secretly transporting an incredibly contagious gastrointestinal virus inside himself while you travel to your coastal destination for rest and relaxation, you would likely not have the advantage of having multiple bathrooms in days gone by. Instead, the whole family would be sharing a beach front outhouse as you all spend vacation vacating your stomach contents, violently and repeatedly.
Nor would you have a convenient CVS Minute Clinic nearby to diagnose family members in rapid succession. Had we had the foresight to combine all our prescriptions together, we likely could have qualified for a bulk discount on Tamiflu.
Puking your guts may not sound like much fun for a family vacation, but I’m trying to look on the bright side: we could have been puking our guts two-hundred years ago when there was no such thing as indoor plumbing. Possibly, the only advantage to going on vacation two hundred years ago is that there were no such things as phones back then, meaning your neighbor couldn’t call you in the midst of your rest, relaxation, and retching to inform you that one of your cows is wandering around the pasture with a five-gallon bucket stuck on his head. This literally happened.
So not only am I sick, I’m now worried sick that one of my cows is going to die from suffocation. My farming reputation is already pretty low, but losing a cow to a stuck five-gallon bucket would make me the laughing stock of every gas station grill in the county. Thankfully, my neighbor called back about an hour later to inform me that the cow had managed to self extricate his cranium from the bucket, at which point I breathed a sigh of relief before continuing my regularly scheduled regurgitation.
So the moral of this story is a) animals always do stupid stuff when you go on vacation and b) get your flu shot. This year, flu b is no joke.
Yikes. That’s one for the books. For what it’s worth, my goats get their heads stuck in plastic Folgers cans all the time, and that’s when I’m watching them. 🤷🏼♀️ C’est la vie.
Yes, one of our goats is pretty notorious for getting his head stuck in things, including a whole in a hollow tree🤷♂️
Bwahahahahahaha
I am so sorry your vacation turned out as it did. Sometimes it’s hard to look on the bright side. Kudos to you for making the effort!
DOUBLE GEEZ!!! I can’t imagine going on a trip with kids when everyone is sick. GEEZ! Especially 200 years ago! So, your cow got it’s head stuck in a 5-gallon bucket? So, what happened next? We rented a Hereford bull a few years ago who’s head and horns were so big it couldn’t drink out of the water trough. I had to make sure it was always full for fear he would get stuck. A friend of mine has goats that get their head through something and can’t get unstuck. It is almost funny… I hope you and yours feels better soon!
Whenever and almost every time I am away for more than a day, the birds do something silly, or sadly any who might have been unwell decide to cross the Rainbow Bridge just before I get home. I can be away shopping for a morning.. no problem, but overnight…..it all goes turkey! I have worked out over the years, they don’t want me getting too tearful at the last breath. They wave goodbye and then deal with that part. I think animals sense the right time. Perception.
I’m not sure vacation was a thing 200 years ago, at least not for farmers!