You don’t recall when a member of your family violated a Pharoah’s tomb or insulted a witch doctor, but it must have happened. That’s the only explanation for the plague with which you have been collectively cursed. It started with your youngest, and he kept your wife up all night while he vomited or dry heaved every half hour or so. And because he is five, he has little awareness or control over where his vomit goes – his sheets, the walls, his older brother in the bunk below. As Patient Zero, his illness lingered the longest and kept him home from school for an impossible three days.

But it didn’t stop there. A couple of days later you succumbed, and made the 2AM dash to the bathroom to loudly eject The Dead Sea through your mouth and nose. And you put your forehead on the cold tile floor, panting and praying that it was over, and that – “oh dear God, bwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh! (Gasp) Okay. Okay. It seems to have passed. I just need to, oh no! Gwarg-guh-guh-gwwaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! Holy tits of Saint Agnes. (Pant) If I die now, at least I’ll know I’ve lived a braaaaaaaaaaaaghhh!!”

And then it struck both your in-laws, who are visiting from Indiana. And then your wife. And then your oldest, who has you pull the car over a mere two blocks from home so she can vomit on a neighbor’s driveway. And you’re like “Hold your hair? You’re behind me and on the other side of the car! What am I, Stretch Armstrong?”

And you go to 7-Eleven and purchase all their Gatorade – enough to drown Finland. And everyone is housebound, and on top of each other. And your U-verse has inexplicably crapped itself, so there’s no cable or WiFi. No WiFi! Like cavemen! And if you don’t get these kids out of your hair you’ll lose your mind. But it’s been raining and lousy outside all morning. And everyone is lethargic – including your never lethargic wife, which surely portends the End Times. And the only person with any energy is Patient Zero, who is loudly bouncing a yoga ball all over the house and complaining about boredom. And all you want to do is escape to your bed, but somehow everyone is in your bed. And something must be done. Something. Must. Be. Done.

So you conjure your inner G. Gordon Liddy, and you man the F up. And your wife rallies too, which sorta pisses you off, because if she had only rallied a minute earlier, you’d be malingering in bed right now while she did all the work. But it can’t be helped. So you tell your children that a wise man once said that the best disinfectant is sunlight (though he was talking about corruption and not a mummy’s curse). And the rain has let up, so you force march the troops and the dog to the car, and you drive to that one park with the creek and the ducks.

As if responding to the sheer force of your will, the sun comes out just enough to make things pleasant. And your kids are happily chucking rocks into the water, or swinging, or digging in the muck with sticks. And you’re on a park bench with your wife, and your head is in her lap, and you stare up through the tree branches at the boundless sky above. And there is only this moment.

And yet again you learn that there is no light without dark. And your appreciation of the joy this life offers is deepened by your experience of its horror. And in some ways, you’re perversely grateful for the mummy’s curse.

But mostly, you’re just glad you’re not vomiting.