A Mild Stomach Bug (Or Something) 🦠
And A Book Update!
Welcome to Adam Rockwell’s Email-Enabled Blog!
Today’s post is part of my Offbeat Stories Series—with a book update! :-)
When I get sick, I usually know it before I get sick-sick. I just don’t realize it.
A few weeks ago I needed to run into Safeway to grab something for dinner. I despise grocery shopping, but unfortunately, I need to eat.
That night, something was off. My always-there anxiety seemed to be at its normal, abnormal levels. I won’t subject you to an in-depth discussion of my various anxiety disorders right now. I’ll wait till next week to do that. I’ll just title it, “Safeway And Me.”
That night in Safeway, there was a disturbance in my mind I couldn’t shake, and it wasn’t the prices of eggs. I’ll pay twenty-four dollars for a dozen eggs and not flinch, even though I’m a penny pincher. It’s not because I want to pay twenty-four dollars for eggs, I don’t. It’s just that the more and more pricey eggs become, the more and more I need them.
“Big Egg” must be using reverse psychology on me. It’s not like it’s caviar. Well, it sort of is like caviar. I wonder if caviar is part of Big Egg, but it’s a sub-committee called Little Big Egg.
Regardless, that night, as I walked under the glare of the stinging overhead fluorescents to the back of the produce section, I quite suddenly realized that I had become a disembodied spirit floating through the store. I had completely disassociated from reality.
Separating my consciousness from reality is a common occurrence in my life as a highly-sensitive anxiety-ridden individual, especially in Safeway. But this was a stronger disassociation than usual. The type of disassociation I more commonly reserve for dinner parties where I’m an unwilling participant.
I thought, “What in the heck is going on? Am I going to collapse in Safeway and cause a big scene!?”
A big scene!
There is nothing worse for an Upper Midwesterner (I’m originally from Wisconsin) than causing a “big scene.” Upper Midwesterners won’t cause a medium scene or a even a small scene if they can help it. No scene is always our choice of scenes.
We Upper Midwesterners are more worried about causing a scene in public than actually being sick or injured in public. The mere thought of somebody seeing one of us in a vulnerable state sends us into apoplectic fits. Of course, we keep these fits to ourselves.
Aside: I have no idea how regular Midwesterners think and have no insight into, say, a Nebraskan. I’m an Upper Midwesterner. 🤗
My guess is that many heart attacks could have been treated properly in the Upper Midwest if the heart attackee had not worried about making a big scene about the heart attack that ended up killing him or her.
Once, as a child, I stabbed myself in the thigh with a sharp pair of scissors while I was cutting the twine on my newspapers for my paper route. I REALLY stabbed myself. Did I complain? No, I tended to my wound for the next several weeks and didn’t say a peep. I was ten.
Back to Safeway. As soon as I realized that I might no longer be in human form in the produce section, I panicked. Often, I panic in Safeway, but this was different. I quickly grabbed the lettuce, ran to the butcher, got the chicken, and did my breathing exercises that didn’t help at all. I floated myself up to the checkout counter and was hyperventilating by this point.
Being a hyperventilating, disembodied spirit is disconcerting. Being one at Safeway is super disconcerting. At least I was able to get the chicken and didn’t just run out of the store and collapse in the parking lot.
When the checkout associate saw me, it was a look of, “Oh, what the hell is going on with this pothead?” She attempted a smile. I briefly forgot the pin number for my debit card, but attempted to keep a smile on my face the entire time. The smile was tough to hold and she probably thought I was tweaking, which I sort of was.
Finally, thank the Gods, the transaction went through and NO, I did not need a receipt, but she printed the four-foot-long receipt anyhow. I stuffed the mile-long piece of glossy paper into an undersized pocket and ran out to the parking lot with the place spinning behind me.
When I got back to the car, my wife, the watercolorist
, was waiting with it running. I was the Safeway runner that night. We have a system. One of us drives and one runs. When I got back to the car, she asked me, “What took you so gosh darn long?” Little did she know, I had just been to hell and back.On the five minute drive home I felt shaky, but by the time we got back to The Sea Hag Luxury Apartments, I had recomposed myself. But something was still off. I went in and made the chicken salad, but for the rest of the evening my brain was on glitch. The nerds call it “brain fog.”
Finally, bedtime rolled around. Before I go to sleep I typically use a device called The Renpho Power Massager. I like to put it on and let the anxiety just melt away. It does everything to you you might want, and then some. It’s a FACE MASSAGER, what were YOU thinking? But that night I was so tired that I fell asleep before I used the Renpho Power Massager.
Unheard of.
And then, 4:30 AM crept around. My usual procedure is to wake up at 3 AM with an existential panic attack, but that night I missed my usual panic attack and woke with a start to something else.
A strange feeling enveloped me.
And then it hit me.
I WAS SICK!
I ran to the bathroom and won’t elaborate further, but it was all the symptoms.
Norovirus is going around right now so I thought it might be that. However, according to both The Cleveland Clinic AND WebMD, I either had food poisoning or some kind of horrible stomach cancer.
In a semi-lucid moment I figured it was more likely a 24-hour bug. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a 48-hour stomach bug.
BTW, when did I start listening to the advice of a clinic in Cleveland that I know nothing about?
Anyhow, that’s what I did last week. Not much was accomplished other than self-recriminations about eating those undercooked vegan corn-dogs. Or perhaps it was the hard-boiled egg I found at the back of the fridge.
It’s the not knowing that is the worst part of any stomach bug.
will beg of me to stop trying to figure out what caused it which I never do. I’m like the Hercule Poirot of the stomach flu (I can’t pronounce Belgian-French). I will find the culprit.But now it’s two weeks later, I’m still trying to piece it together.
Maybe it was the chicken I had eaten that night and the whole Safeway debacle was just my usual shopping freakout. Maybe.
The End
The Unexpected Exorcist – An Update On The Book!
My upcoming book, The Unexpected Exorcist, is almost done. It’s not exactly an “upcoming book” because I already published the whole thing here last year, but the last phases of physical and Kindle publication are almost done.
It will be released by Over The Top Books, LLC (owner, Adam Rockwell) in all Amazon’s near you on March 1st, 2025. Originally, I had hoped for a January 1 release, but had to push it back due to the usual BS. (Book Stuff)
If you are a paid subscriber, you will receive a SIGNED copy of the physical book. When it’s ready, I’ll send you an address request form.
Hurrah, Adam! Not that you experienced that illness you described in detail. Rather, the state of your book, The Unexpected Exorcist of Oregon.” (Thumbs through notes; none found) But I am certain it will be a great success! Congratulations.
"No scene is always our choice of scenes." You could be from western Michigan (where I am) because that IS the choice of scenes. I once broke my arm (actually, I didn't break it, one of the neighborhood boys wanted to make me cry so he took my hands to "swing me around" and let me fly. I hit a lamp post. My left arm broke). I told my dad (an MD) that my arm hurt and he said "You'll be fine." 3 days later I wasn't fine, we went to the hospital for an XRAY and I can remember like it was a second ago, standing with him in the "look at the XRAY room", and he said, "Well, well. It IS broken." Such a great post - you turn a phrase in the very best way. 😃