Yuck!

(Source)

"OAFS Two-Five, you are cleared for take-off."

"Roger tower, Two-Five, rolling."

Easing back on the control yoke, the pilot, callsign Fatman, had the bird off the runway and turning slightly to get the aircraft on a north bound heading. Getting the bird airborne with a full load of ordnance used a lot of gas, so the co-pilot, callsign LUSH, was on the radios with the tanker.

"Booger, you up?" The pilot called over the intercom to the bombardier (callsign Booger, obviously).

"Roger Fatman, all systems are in the green, but I'm getting an intermittent fault light on the weapons computer."

"Copy, keep an eye on it. Mom, you have a course for us?"

The navigator, callsign Mom, checked in, "Hold this course, you should see the tanker in a couple of minutes. Hey, quit jinking would you, Booger looks a little queasy."

"Copy. Hey, let me fly the aircraft, you just keep me pointing in the right direction. Toejam, how you looking?"

The Electronic Warfare Officer, or EWO, callsign Toejam, checked her systems and reported back that everything was in the green.

Refueling went smoothly, even with the intermittent turbulence the aircraft was experiencing. The crew accused the pilot of being heavy-handed on the controls, the pilot told them to suck it up as pretty soon they'd be down in the weeds and doing some "real flying."

Just as the pilot began his descent, he heard retching noises over the intercom. Looking back quickly, he regretted that decision immediately. All he could see was the bombardier retching all over the navigator. For some odd reason, the EWO thought that was hysterical. The smell threatened to overwhelm the entire crew.

"Talk to me people, what the hell is going on back there!"

No response.

"LUSH, get back there and check it out."

Moments later, LUSH came back to the cockpit.

"Jesus Fatman, it's a mess back there. Booger blew chunks all over Mom, everything is covered in vomit and damn near every caution light on the nav board is lit. Freaking Toejam didn't get any on her but she's laughing like a crazy person."

"Mom, Fatman. Can you continue?"

"Ah, negative Fatman. Everything back here is covered with Booger's breakfast."

Before Mom clicked off, the pilot heard, "Jesus Booger, what the hell did you eat this morning?"

So yeah, the plan yesterday was to get up early, hit the road and head north to visit my mother. She hasn't seen the youngest grandchild since she was about two months old. Now she's 17 months old, motoring around on her own two feet and chattering like a magpie. As the naval branch of the California tribe doesn't make it back East all that often, it seemed appropriate to make a visit. Though three hours up and three hours back (can't stay overnight for various and sundry reasons) makes for a long day, we've done it before.

I was up at 0600 and ready to roll at 0700. Of course, no one else was ready as they were still in the process of waking up and, as The Missus Herself (callsign Mom) often reminds me (callsign Fatman), getting the young 'uns up, fed, and ready to roll is time consuming, even when the young 'uns are feeling cooperative. Which they were.

At any rate The Missus Herself and The WSO (callsign LUSH), eventually got the kids, Little Bit (callsign Booger) and L'il Sweetie (callsign Toejam) ready and we loaded up the car. A few stops later (to buy fuel, then flowers, then coffee) we were on the road. About an hour and a half later than I wanted, but, as most of you know, I seldom get a vote when the females of the clan are gathered en masse. Which they were.

An hour into the trip, Little Bit, with no warning, hurled all over her grandmother (sitting in the back seat between the bairns in their car seats), aka The Missus Herself. As we were on the highway with no place to stop, we spent about 15 minutes in that toxic atmosphere before pulling over into what turned out to be an out-of-business gas station. (Which I discovered when The WSO directed me to go inside and buy some kind of cleaner. When we pulled in I had parked to the side and hadn't noticed the conspicuous absence of humans and merchandise inside. In my defense, my focus was on the conditions prevailing in the backseat.)

As we still had about 2 hours and change to go to my mother's place, we weren't at the "point of no return" and as The Missus Herself and Little Bit were pretty much covered from the waist down with...

Nah, not gonna go there. The memory (and the smell) are still too fresh.

Needless to say, we didn't go visit my mom. But I did get a blog post out of it. So the day wasn't a total loss. Then again, I wasn't covered in, well, you know what. The GIBs (gals in the back) might have a different take on the day. But it's my blog and I get to tell the story. No doubt their version, provided they wished to relive those moments, would be rather different.

Wasn't that humorous at the time, at least not to the GIBs, but, as I'm a loon, I saw the humor in it almost immediately. As for Little Bit, once she'd, shall we say, cleared the target, she said she felt much better. Just a passing queasiness. When we arrived back at Chez Sarge, she announced that she was hungry and "can we go to McDonald's?"

I tell ya, the kid's a trooper. Iron stomach and all that.

Speaking of stomachs, after we had returned home, the bairns were tossed into the bath (L'il Sweetie didn't really need it but she loves bath time). The WSO stepped away briefly to grab a towel and upon her return noticed a foreign object afloat in the bath water.

"Oh Dear God", I heard my daughter exclaim. Seems that L'il Sweetie had decided to contribute to the day's all around disgusting-ness in her own little way. Um no, that wasn't a Baby Ruth. Though it kinda looked like one. Kinda reminded me of a few admins LUSH and her squadron mates have told me about. Even The Skipper had a couple of tales but...

Let's just call it a day, shall we?

Quelle affaire! (As Blücher might have said...)

Or, as Colonel Kurtz might have said...