That's It, We're Related

My brother just called.  His only agenda?  To call me to tell me that I am genetically related to my mother.  He called to tell me that I received the puking gene from our mother.

Let me start at the beginning.  Here is an excerpt from a blog I wrote in 2009: 

My brother and I have a strange competition, a running tally of vomit incidents. We argue that we haven't vomited in years and who wears the no barf crown the longest. 

Honestly, I can count the times I have vomited on 4 fingers, technically 3. #1. 1980 road trip to Ocean Shores over Labor Day weekend.  I felt queasy before we even left on our trip and I remember my Dad stopping at the 7-11 to buy me anti-puke med's. 90 minutes after ingesting the medication, I tossed my cookies all over my white painter pants. It was NOT pretty. Picture three of us sitting on the bench seat in the back of our impala. Puke in the footwell. #2. Concussion of 1986. I was standing on a dock with a group of friends one night, and an idiot threw a fishing lure off the dock. The lure weight hit me square in the forehead. Instant giant purple bump and gushing blood. I went home and hurled and went to bed. Not very smart, parents not too happy. #3. Post-op 1993. After my thyroid surgery I was given anti-puke med's (yes, I've learned my lesson) and I spit up into a plastic bucket while in recovery. *Technically this one shouldn't count.* #4. Antibiotics of 2009. Cost me the crown.  This morning when David came in to see how I was feeling (he slept elsewhere) I told him I barfed. The first words out of his mouth were NOT “are you okay”…”can I get you anything”…instead David asks, "Did you call your brother yet?" So I called Matt. When he picked up and said hello I said, "I ended my streak." He broke out in laughter and knew immediately what I meant. The conversation digressed to past incidents and gross things...

I humbly bow to King Matthew.  Now he calls me “pukey.”

Back to present day.

Our Mother had surgery today, a gamma knife surgery to ablate the part of her brain that causes her Parkinson’s tremors.  Brain surgery sounds kind of scary, and it is, but she is already home and resting and has no limitations.  Gamma knife surgery is done with multiple points of radiation ablating the desired point.  There is no incision.  The worst part is having the halo screwed to your head.

During the surgery today my Mother got sick.  It was the first thing she told me when she called on her way home.  It was the entirety of the conversation.   

Fifteen or twenty minutes pass after I get off the phone with Mom, the phone rang.  I knew who it was before I saw the caller ID.  I knew what the conversation subject was before I said hello.

It was King Matthew.  He heard me say hello and started in on me, “So it’s definite.  You are related.  Mom gave you the pukey genes.”  Ass.