We called it ‘Giuliani’s Revenge’
August 12, 2003, my brother and I jumped in the car to drive the double-digit hours it would take to get to New York to join our family in a celebration of our grandfather’s birthday.
(Read on to see why I know the exact date so well!)
Our mom’s side of the family lives almost exclusively in the northeast — New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts — so big gatherings often require long drives from our Kentucky contingent. But the gatherings are almost universally fun and alcohol-filled, so we make the trip often enough … or at least we did before children.
Anyway, Jeremy and I stayed at our grandfather’s apartment. The birthday celebration was for the night of Aug. 14, so our first night there, Aug. 13, we ordered Chinese food, sat on our grandparents’ balcony, and had an all-in-all pleasant night.
And then the next morning, we were in agony.
Can I say definitively that what happened next was the fault of the Chinese food? No, I can’t, especially since only my brother and I were affected and my grandparents were fine. Regardless, we called it Giuliani’s Revenge, because we woke up in complete agony and figured it was the New York food that did it.
Food poisoning is just an awful, awful experience. The day, Aug. 14, was beautiful, and the family was getting together to spend the day at the pool before my grandfather’s party that night. Jeremy and I … did not do that. We spent the day laying on the couches, watching DVDs, making unpleasant bathroom trips. It wasn’t great, but on the other hand there are worse ways to have to suffer than “comfy couch, air-conditioned living room and lots of DVDs.”
One of those worse ways? Oh, let me see…
We just so happened to have suffered food poisoning — as far as I can remember, the only food poisoning of my life — right before the biggest and most widespread blackout in American history. You know what you can’t do in a blackout? No air conditioning. No DVDs. And — and I have no idea how many places this is true, because it’s never been the case anywhere I’ve ever lived, but it was true here — minimal toilet usage. Apparently, either in New York or in this specific apartment complex, the water system needs power to refill the toilet tank beyond what’s already on site, so if there’s no power, you have to be very judicious about your flushing. (Don’t ask me the specifics, I don’t know them beyond “Don’t use the toilet much, guys.”)
Let me tell you, when you have food poisoning, it sucks. When you have food poisoning and can’t use the bathroom when you need to, it sucks so much worse.
Meanwhile, remember, a big chunk of my extended family was around for a birthday celebration that now could not reasonably happen, because there was no power for hours in any direction. My lots-of-connections uncle got on the phone and started making calls, eventually finding a pizza place with a big gas oven that would feed us in the parking lot at like 9 p.m. It had to be one-billion-percent against all health code, but whatever. By the time dinner came around, Jeremy was feeling okay (not great, but okay), and I felt … I mean, functional. We went to dinner. Jeremy had a couple slices of pizza. I put one on a plate and had a couple tiny bites before deciding nope, that wasn’t the ticket.
That should have been the end of the story. The party was over, power came back on (sporadically over a few days, but for our purposes it was back), and we had to return to Kentucky the next day. Jeremy felt fine by the morning. I felt … I mean, still not great. But at least I thought I could make a dozen-hour drive without disaster.
And I should have been able to! Except partway across Philadelphia, we ended up in absolute standstill traffic, about a quarter-mile behind a bridge that was blocked by an overturned garlic truck. In other words, I spent more than an hour with a queasy stomach and the absolutely overwhelming smell of garlic permeating everything and absolutely nowhere to go. If you thought “try not to go to the bathroom more than necessary because the power’s out” was rough, I invite you to try the new sensation.
Eventually, we got the opportunity to get off at a local exit. I told Jeremy I was stopping at the first gas station. Which meant, of course, that the exit we made it to had absolutely nothing. I’m sure it connected to something important to the Pennsylvania economy or something, but as far as places for weary travelers to go, that’s a hearty LOL.
Add to it that every single car in the world had to use this exit, so travel was going about 2 mph. I had gotten my hopes up for a bathroom and then couldn’t get to one, which makes it all twice as bad. We crept along middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania until I saw a business. And I say “business” in the most tenuous possible sense, because what it actually was was a little real estate office in a little brick building that might as well have been a house. But this was my destination one way or another. I pulled in and ran inside, where the optimistic-looking lady in the closest desk stood up to ask how she could help me.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked before she had even finished. She idly pointed toward it while trying to stammer out some sort of “employees only” information that I had no interest in hearing, and I hurried past her.
I was in there for a not-insignificant amount of time. I flushed multiple times. I poured sweat. I felt like the biggest jerk in the entire world (the bathroom was only a couple feet from that confused lady’s desk). But I had realized my salvation, one way or another.
After … I don’t know, 10 minutes? More? … I finished and walked back out of the bathroom to the confused and unhappy eyes of an office full of real estate folks. I threw away my hand towel, shook my head, said “I’m so sorry” in the most remorseful voice I could manage, and went outside, where Jeremy was now in the driver’s seat and as far as I could tell had spent the entire time laughing at my condition, laughter that continued through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky, and whenever the topic comes up, continues to this day.
That’s the end, I guess. After I defiled that little office, I felt better, we got home, things went back to normal. But somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, there’s a little real estate office and some employees who probably still tell the story of the heavyset sweaty guy who absolutely destroyed their day one time back in 2003.
And to those people, whoever you are, wherever you are now, let me just say it again … I’m sorry. It was Rudy Giuliani’s fault.