Many years later, when Val was a high school senior, she and I took my mom on a road trip to Virginia over Spring Break, to visit relatives and see Virginia Beach.
The
second night on the road, we ate dinner at the Kentucky Fried Chicken in
Danville, then checked into a Super 8 motel. Hours after going to bed, Val
started vomiting and couldn’t stop. By three am, my mom and I decided that
enough was enough, and we dragged my poor daughter into the car to begin
searching for the nearest ER.
The night clerk at the motel tried to be helpful, but in the dark of the night,
her directions made no sense. We just started driving, hoping to run across a
big blue H sign.
The Danville Regional Medical Center
is a nice, modern facility, and the ER doctor didn’t take long to diagnose food
poisoning. We immediately blamed the Colonel. With IV fluids and Compazine
running, Val was able to fall right asleep in her hospital bed. Grandma and
Mom, on the other hand, dozed fitfully in our hard plastic chairs, our heads
bobbing and jerking, until they released Val at seven in the morning.
The poor kid never seemed to get any
breaks on our vacations. Except for this time, when we got to my mom’s uncle’s
house.
When we pulled the car into their
driveway, Val wanted to stay in the car, sleeping off her ER visit. We left her
there when we went in to see the relatives.
A short time later, the woman who came
in the afternoons to help them with dinner, housework, and getting them ready
for bed arrived. When she found Val in the car, she scooped my daughter up and
brought her inside.
“I found dis little girl out in da
car,” the woman announced in her Southern drawl. “She say she sick, and the
back seat of a car ain’t no place if you sick. I goin’ put her in bed and git
her some lemon tea.”
Val dutifully followed her into the
bedroom and crawled into bed. When it was time to leave for the evening, Val
really didn’t want to go. She found Southern hospitality much to her liking.
Finally, something my baby girl agreed with!
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| Val on Virgina Beach |
