Got a call from the sitter today. My daughter had issues at both ends – projectile from one led to explosive reaction at the other. That is as delicately as I can put it.
Cruel Wife was leaving work at that time anyway and said “Work the extra you need to work and then come home, I’ll deal with it.”
I came in the door and gagged.
Franken-Boy was playing on the Wii, oblivious. Cruel Wife was in the laundry. I gagged some more.
CW came up and saw my stomach was rolling and said “Go on, get out of here.”
I leaped at the chance to go to the local CVS to get Ritz™ crackers and some Sprite™ because they just plain stay down easier. And I figured Girlhead might have an easier time of it, too.
Guess what? I came back in the door and was exposed to it all over again.
That time I made it to the bathroom as the nausea swelled, but… nope. Nothing.
I have a really sensitive nose – I’m the canary in the coal mine. Years ago I went down the street to a buddy’s store and said “Dude, did something burn up today?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m smelling something hot.”
“Can’t smell a thing.”
“Well, I’m telling you something is not right.”
“Nope. Nothing.”
The next day I came in and he said “Dude, we had a fire last night. Lucky the place did not burn down.” He then led me to the spot where a cord to one of the coolers had failed and resulted in a big black section of wall.
As I tell CW, “The nose knows.”
The smell is not getting better. I’m not getting used to it.
So the question I have is this:
In general, are all men wussier than women when it comes to smells, or are men just by nature given more sensitive schnozzes, or am I a total wimp?
I’m pretty sure I’m a wimp, but I’m curious about the thoughts on the other parts of the question.
****
I do work with this one machine shop all the time and have for the last 12 years or so.
So today my buddy Steel Nerves stopped by. He said a friend’s boy is autistic, too (like mine, but worse, as you’ll see). His buddy asked his son to go to the fridge and get a beer. The kid went and got it and just stood there in front of his dad as you can imagine a totally literal autistic kid would.
So the Dad says, “Don’t just stand there, throw that beer over here.”
Now, if you are the parent of an autistic kid you will understand exactly what I mean when I said my warning bells started to ring shrilly. I said “Oh, no, Steel Nerves… tell me he didn’t…”
Steel Nerves nods and says “Yup, kid hauls off and chucks that bottle as hard as he can and it hits his dad square in the center of the forehead – CRACK! He came around to tell me about it, sporting a HUGE lump dead-center of the forehead – black and blue, mostly black.”
I said “SHEEEIT, Steel Nerves! How old is the boy?”
“Sixteen. Knocked his Dad right the **** out,” and nods matter of factly.
Can you imagine how hard a sixteen year old could hurl a beer bottle at your forehead? Damn.
Lemur King's Folly 
Holy hell the last part of this story is hilarious. I’ve got a 12 year old nephew with Downs and that kid is strong as a bear. I’ve learned the hard way, do not say something like “Throw it to me” to him. It hurts.
As far as smells, I think the weak stomach may come with age. When my kids we in diapers I could change them all day long and not have any problem. Now, if I try to change one of my nieces diapers, I spend more time gagging than diaper changing.
Yeah – we’re lucky that most of the confusion with our son (so far) is that euphemisms go right over his head – nothing dangerous in terms of actions. Both the kids are autistic just in different ways as we’ve recently found out, but neither one of them gets metaphor in the least. The girl is picking up on sarcasm (thank God). Well, maybe the girl does get metaphor but not always and sometimes locks up on some that seem quite trivial to us.
I wasn’t really a very good diaper changer, either. I’m a wimp.
Now, I’m off to go eat some incendiary leftover Thai food I made last night. Maybe that will help quiet my stomach.
If it makes you feel any better, it is actually documented that parents can (usually) tolerate the smell of their own progeny’s excrement better than another child’s. After babysitting a friend’s son who was slightly older than mine, I can attest to that. Gag gag gag city.
Funny, it doesn’t make me feel any better at all.
The smell thing? Nah…you ain’t a wimp. As da truth said, it’s age. I can barely stomach the taste of toothpaste now, yet it never bothered me while growing up. It started only a few months ago.
Glad to hear CW has a new job, though! And as for telling an autistic kid to throw something….well, I learned to NEVER say that to ANY kid 😉
Oh, no new job. Old one hasn’t ended yet.
This biohazard stuff … never imagined that I would again smell something that nasty coming out of such a little kid. Last time it was when she was 3 years old. It was way vile-er then, but tonight had me gagging.
a little vicks on the upper lip will overpower your sense of smell LK
I probably would have shoved a teaspoon or two into my already oozing sinuses at that point.
Speaking of changing diapers and gagging….
I remember one time when I was changing my son’s diaper. He was around six months old at the time. I had cleaned him off, had gotten rid of the old diaper, and was in the process of holding his lower body up in the air so I could get the new diaper underneath him when it happened.
Let’s just say that a good amount of material suddenly exploded out of him and splattered all over the front of my shirt. I cleaned him up again, put a fresh diaper on him, and then called out to my wife and told her to come back to the bedroom with a pair of scissors. I then made her cut the shirt off me while I stood there fighting to hold down my gag reflex. She cut it off and I threw it away and then went to the bathroom where I spent a few minutes. It was awful.
And that was one of my favorite shirts. Sigh.
Ooogh. Yeah. Biohazard. “Cut it off! Cut it off me NOW!”
You poor bastard.
They cut off one of my favorite shirts and a good pair of jeans the time I got mangled in the mill. Didn’t even bother to save them, just cut ’em off and whisked me into surgery. Damn I loved that shirt. I feel your pain, brother…
Lucky they didn’t trash my good steel-toed boots, too.
And no, you’re not a wimp. I’ve got a very strong stomach, and I’m younger than you and Aggie, and baby crap and vomit will make me gag something fierce. That shit’s awful.
No problem with baby crap. Changed all my kids diapers with no complants. One of the reasons my sweetieheart decided to marry me (still don’t know how I got so lucky) was because I offered to help with her youngest who was still in diapers at the time I was “courting” her. (Her ex would never have entertained such a thing.)
As far as the puke goes…. I am very sympathetic to it. If anyone (adult or child) heaves in my general neighborhood…I am right there with em…giving my 100%. Try breathing through your mouth…that will cut down the smell a lot.
Oh, and blood…no problem there…other then I have a tendency to watch the spurting and go “COOL!!”, before common sense kicks in to help stop the bleeding.
I told CW last night that if she handles the two P’s, I will handle any and all blood, broken bones, severed fingers, ruptured testicles, etc – all the dumb things boys do to themselves.
I can turn off trauma if needs be, I can’t turn off my reptilian-brain gag reflex to smell.
The thrid “p” can sneak up on ya too. Especially if you have a baby boy. When my oldest was about six months old or so, the wife (at that time) and I were getting ready to go out to some function or another. One of the last things we needed to do was change the young one’s diaper … he had pooped and probably peed, but not sure about the last part. As I was handling the changing of the pard’ (we lived in Tx at the time…so pard…short for pardner fits…just go with it!) His mom was looking over my shoulder and commented that I had better hurry with the diaper, cause he may start peeing (again) at any moment, I said not a problem, relax I’ve got this under control. At that point he chose to start the water works from his little hose going…shot a stream of it right up in the air….and over my shoulder…hitting the ex right on her blouse.
Didn’t say I told you so….hard to say anything when you are biting your tongue so hard to stop the laughter trying it’s damnedest to come out.
So… you slept on the couch for a while, hmmm?
It’d have been worth it.
Actually, she changed her blouse, and we went off to what ever event we were going to. But I never got “coached” about how to change a diaper again. (She never again stood behind me durring changing time either!) Had I opened my mouth, or let out a laugh, however….yeah, after I regained consciousness, I would have been on the couch.)
I had one of those incidents while I was still in the hospital after Franken-Boy was born. My sister had warned of the potential problem, but I hadn’t gotten anything in place yet to, er, cover the potential threat while changing his diaper for the second or third time. Yep, water works started. it went up one side of my head and down the other, getting my ears and hair, but somehow (THANK GOODNESS) missing all the important parts of my face altogether. What does Dear LK say to me? “At least there are few things as benign as a newborn’s pee.” Yeah. He did. Of course, he wasn’t the one who nearly got a face full of it. He got “The Look” for that comment.