Typhoid Mary Hits Mardi Gras (With Child)

By now I should be in New Orleans sipping a beverage and relaxing. In actuality, I'm probably fighting rush hour traffic to get to my aunt's house in Metairie, but we can all dream, can't we? I'm in New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras with my family and The Queen of the Mayhem and all her little subjects.

I won't be posting much (if any) while I'm gone. Mainly because it's a bad idea to blog while drunk. I might end up that scary NaBloPoYe, or whatever, where you promise to post every day for a year in return for ...? Sorry, I'm not sure what you get other than a mandatory 48 hour stay at the mental institution of your choice.

My stay in the Crescent City will be marred a bit, unfortunately. You see I seem to have developed tuberculosis or something this slight cough and it won't go away. I've been bitching to T about how I never got sick before we had kids. Of course he had to remind me, "But remember that time you infected Tobago?" And no, he didn't misspeak, he meant the entire island of Tobago, not simply one or two people in Tobago.

You see, we went with friends to Tobago for the whole year 2000 New Years thing. We figured if the world ended and planes fell from the sky, a beach would be a good place to be. Over Christmas, my parents visited and every one of us got sick. Even T, who rarely gets sick. (Damn him.) I must have better immunity because I was the last to fall. Consequently, when we boarded a plane in Washington, D.C., shortly before December 31st, I was still hacking everywhere.

It was so bad our fellow passengers on the American Airlines flight from Miami to Trinidad were giving me that look. You know the one where they're wondering if the customs officials in Trinidad will be insane enough to let this obvious petri dish into their country. I swear I saw money changing hands when I came back from the plane bathroom. I think T was accepting bribes to stay away from certain hotels and beaches. Bastard.

Anyway, we were there with friends, who introduced us to some Tobago island friends they'd met last time they were there. Our new second hand friends took us to a party with yet more friends and even had us over for dinner. We had the island specialty, a yummy curried crab with dumplings.

We were supposed to meet up with our new friends again but heard that the man of the house had gotten sick. And then their kids. And then the wife. And then the neighbors. One by one, they fell like dominoes. We hot footed it out of the country before they demanded the CDC come pick me up in hazmat gear.

But I'm sure my trip to New Orleans won't be like that. Nooooooooo!

Heather, forget everything you read here.