You’re as vigilant as Captain Ahab, but it’s been twenty-four hours since any rumor of your white whale, let alone a cry of “thar she blows!” Not only does your son seem well, but none of the other five people in the car have gotten sick. And for this you are hugely grateful.

You roll into Amarillo at 1AM, so weary from driving through a thunderstorm that you forgot to play the requisite George Strait song. And your wife goes into the Holiday Inn to get your rooms while you unload the bags. But she comes back out looking like the angry ghost of Roddy Piper. There has been some mistake with the app, and they actually never had a two bedroom suite available, but instead have just one room. And even though she had called to reconfirm on the way into town, you will be sleeping three to a bed. You call a few of the area hotels, but they are all full. And you’re so damn tired you’re unable to be exasperated, or even summon much in the way of complaint. If it were 9PM, this would all be her fault. But at 1AM, it’s nobody’s fault. Or everyone’s. Or the will of God, or Zeus, or Rexfelis, Prince of Cats. Whatever.

You all file into the one room, and miraculously, your kids don’t complain either. There’s even some good-natured chiding as your oldest son admonishes your youngest daughter that she is not to cuddle him. And everyone grins, knowing that no matter how they start out the night, when they wake up in the morning she will be cuddling him.

And you sleep like a dead man.

But then at 4AM, thar she blows! She blows, she blows! It’s your youngest son, the one who is squeezed between you and your wife, the one who was *not* sick all over your car. And he’s now vomiting all over the bed you are in. Because of course he is.

And your wife springs up and into action. And you know what? She’s got this. And as waves of a familiar stench rise around you, you roll over and cling to your pillow as if it were Queequeg’s coffin.