Thursday, May 16, 2013

Beware of Biohazard

Early this morning, shortly after our alarm went off, I sleepily rounded the corner from the living room into the kitchen.  It was time to pack Michael's lunch, and I groggily rubbed my eyes in an effort to wake myself up.

And then I turned on the light.  And GASPED in horror.

No, it wasn't a cockroach I saw.  No, it wasn't a mouse. 

It was this:


It was Michael's lunch bag, and it was hanging there, ominous and foreboding, showing me that it had been left out all night.  Eww.

He must have hung it there after getting home from work yesterday, but we got so busy with talking and having dinner that neither one of us remembered to empty it out. 

This means that any leftovers or left-over residues were unrefrigerated since yesterday at lunch time, a long 18 hours ago.

At this point, anything could be fermenting, festering, or growing inside.  Keeping a safe distance, I tried to peek in.


For me personally, there is nothing worse than having to reach your hand into the dark abyss of an unrefrigerated lunch bag of leftovers and residues.  Perhaps it's even worse than Liam's diapers because, at least with those, everything's all out in the open and there's nothing more than meets the eye. 

But with a lunch bag like this, there's dark corners, rips in the interior lining, and little recessed holes that could be hiding anything.  Moreover, there's glass containers in there that house warm little ecosystems where micro-monsters can proliferate and gain strength against us. 

And what you see is very tricky and misleading.  It might look like a warm piece of chicken smothered with home-made tomato sauce and it might even sorta smell good, but at this point it's surely laced with poisonous bacteria that would send a person into convulsive hysteria if they took a bite. 

Yikes.  This is a LOT for me to deal with so early in the morning.

But, just as I thought about running away from it all and suggesting to Michael that he buy his lunch today instead, I remembered that I have Mommy Super Powers now.  I'm supposed to be able to tackle big, bio-hazardous messes without flinching.  And although Liam thankfully hasn't given me the chance to clean up any throw-up yet, people are telling me that I should be equipped with the ability to even catch it in my hands without gagging. 

Mommies can do these things, they say, and I must remember that I am one of them now.  :)