I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
August 19, 2008
>”Hey, where’d you put my diaper bag?”
Hubs froze where he was standing in the kitchen, then stared at me. “I left it at the gym!” he exclaimed.
“And now it’s closed,” I said. “Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to pick it up tomorrow.” I heaved a big sigh. “You’re lucky my wallet and my iPod weren’t in there,” I said. “Sometimes they are.”
“I’ll go and get it first thing tomorrow,” Hubs promised.
The next day, Hubs went to the gym, worked out, and retrieved my diaper bag. When he brought it home and plunked it down on the kitchen table, I went over and began absentmindedly rummaging through it the way one does after retrieving something that’s been left somewhere overnight. I wadded up a few old receipts and food wrappers and threw them in the trashcan, then dug a little deeper to find an old sippy cup in the bottom and- something else. At the vinyl bottom of the diaper bag, beneath the diapers and the wipes and the sunscreen, my fingers touched something sticky and gooey and completely disgusting. I felt around a little more. It completely covered the bottom of the bag. I pulled out my fingers and looked at them. It was yellowish brown. I sniffed. It smelled like…. beer.
For a long moment, I stood there, frozen. My nose said yes, but my mind said Oh. Hell. No. I sniffed inside my bag again. It was beer, all right. But this was more than beer. This was… creamy.
“Oh my God, Hubs!” I said, running to the sink and washing my hands. “Someone at the gym puked beer in my diaper bag!”
It’s one of those predicaments you won’t find listed in any parenting advice book. There are no chapters entitled, “What to Do When Someone Pukes Beer in Your Diaper Bag.” I felt I had nowhere to turn, no guide to tell me what to do next. As I scrubbed my hands, the enormity of the situation washed over me like a cold, foamy wave of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
“Who would puke beer in my diaper bag?!” I asked Hubs uncomprehendingly. “Who? And in the nursery, no less?”
“Uh, no one would,” Hubs said. Cautiously, he sniffed my diaper bag. “Ugh. That’s beer, all right.”
“Beer puke, Hubs,” I reiterated. “It’s creamy.”
As I cleaned out my bag, I did a mental line-up of everyone I know who works at the nursery. I tried to imagine each of them puking in my diaper bag- but it was no use. They all were above suspicion.
I puzzled over the situation for some time. Several hours (and two extra rinse cycles in the washing machine) later, I finally managed to narrow it down to one of two scenarios:
A) The Director of Childcare found out that I was trying to hire one of the soon-to-be-quitting, college-aged nursery workers as a part-time babysitter. (That totally didn’t work, by the way.) To get me back, she puked beer in my diaper bag.
B) She did it. Yeah, I’ve seen her around at the gym. And if she’s read my blog, well, chances are she felt a burning need to retaliate for my retaliation. I sooooo wouldn’t put it past her. And she probably did a cheer on my diaper bag, too, after she puked beer into it. Everything in there was kinda squashed.
C) Someone has suggested that the beer puke may actually have been fermented juice from a sippy cup. Well, I suppose it might have be-…. naah.
I realize that others at the gym read this blog. I’m sure this revelation of mine will create a firestorm of controversy over there that will be difficult to contain. Staff meetings will be held. Lie detector tests will be administrated. Friendships will be tested. A new policy will be instituted, in which each diaper bag is inspected for beer puke as it’s checked in and out of the nursery.
I really do hate to cause trouble. But y’all. SOMEONE PUKED BEER IN MY DIAPER BAG. If that’s not blogworthy, I don’t know what is.
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>That is so nasty, it about made me have to puke up my cheerios. I can’t even imagine who did it or why!! An inquest is definitely in order
>That is so very disgusting. I will mention though from past experience of leaving something in my diaper bag. If you by chance left a bottle or sippy cup of apple juice or orange juice in their they both tend to smell like beer after fermenting and also look super nasty. SOO not sure if that scenario is possible. LOL
>Hmm. I suppose that’s a possibility… but I prefer to believe that SOMEONE PUKED BEER IN MY DIAPER BAG.
>OMG, that is so disgusting. And totally your hubs;’ fault BTW – I am surprised he didn’t get a face rip-off ;-)You are right, that is definitely the worst thing to find in a diaper bag, short of a severed finger… or a used condom. Yuck!
>Whoa. I wonder if they have staff after-parties? I know at our Y, sometimes the instructors’ kids have the run of the Adventure Center after closing. And that’s attached to the child watch room. BLECH. Are you tossing the bag? I don’t think I could manage to clean up who-knows-who’s puke…
>Oh, my pregnant stomach can NOT handle this post.
>Gross! Whether is was the sippy cup or beer puke–disgusting.I know my sister and nephew were there a couple of times this weekend, so I have a vested interest in the inquest results.
>While I admittedly have a history with your diaper bag, I’d like to state, for the record, that it was not me.
>EW! And what makes it worse is that you TOUCHED IT! I will never blindly reach into my diaper bag again!
>I have no problems cleaning up puke if it is someone I know but stranger beer puke in the diaper bag… that bag would have gone straight into the trash. Ewww!
>That is SO WRONG!!!!! and yet, I still find it a little funny…
>If the puke was only on the bottom and not on the diapers and other stuff, then they moved it all, puked on the bottom, and then put everything back on top. It was totally done on purpose. If you want some interigation techniques, I have a friend in the CIA…
>I would never want to take away a blog worthy experience;); but, to play devil’s advocate…IF someone puked in your bag, wouldn’t the puke be all over everything, and not just settled down in the bottom of the bag? I mean, who would dump out your bag, puke, and then pile everything back in??;)
>A very nefarious person, that’s who!
>;) OK, OK.
>Ew. I can’t believe you attempted to clean it out. I would have tossed the whole wretched mess. Gross…
>Well, it was a REALLY NICE diaper bag! 🙂
>I’d be going with the fermented apple juice theory (unless your toddler drinks beer).Becasue the other? Is just Too. Much. To. Contemplate. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww. And you TOUCHED it.
>What’s gross? Puke. What’s grosser than gross? Reaching into the bottom of your diaper bag and getting a handful of puke, beer puke no less.Ugh, so sorry.
>Wow–I was going to ask you which gym you go to but I think I will pass. If someone is going to PUKE in a diaper bag, what will happen to a new YANKEE member?!
>…and…and you TOUCHED IT! i’m absolutely dying right now.
>I bet the “puke” is rotten apple juice, which smells a lot like beer. I had a similar incident happen and it was the fermented apple juice that had leaked from the sippy cup. GROSS non the less.
>Oh man. Funny, funny. And plenty gross.I’m going to have to go with the fermented juice theory, (especially because that’s happened to me, too), but puke makes a much better story. 😉
>Definitely Gross, but because the gross-ness was only on the bottom, I really tend towards thinking it is/was fermented apple juice. Puke is nasty nasty, I personally can’t deal with it (I paid my 5 year old $20 two years ago to clean the major parts of a vomit mess in my van). I think if it were vomit, there would be the definite vomit smell as well.
>I don’t think it was puke. I’m thinking a sippy cup leaked in the bottom of the diaper bag and fermented! It does smell like beer and it gets a bit creamy also. I’ve had this happen numerous times.
>Sorry about your diaper bag. I’m from Middle Tennessee and read your blog everyday. I saw your morning show commercial!! VERY CUTE!!!
>In the middle of a game of racquetball at the gym, a used condom fell into our court from the window up above it. And my husband only saw the wrapper so he made me keep playing despite the — USED condom in the court. I will never feel clean again, just as I suspect you’ll never want to store anything in that compartment of the bag again.We may be heading to Nashville soon (watching tropical storm Fay…)- anything we have to see?
>Thanks, Eve!Overflowing Brain, if there’s room, book two seats on Nash Trash Tours (you can Google it). The Grand Ole Opry is actually really fun. The Loveless Cafe has great food, so does Martha’s at the Belle Meade Plantation. Frankly, all the touristy things here are actually fun. You can’t go wrong!
>That is so wrong, on SO MANY LEVELS
>Ok…I just found your blog and I just have to say…that is too FUNNY!! I mean, I am sorry and all about your trama but…it’s really funny!
>Wait…you put beer in a sippy cup? Oh..wait…nevermind.That’s just plain nasty. I think it’s answer B alright…yup, definitely.
>Juice shmuice. Whatever.It’s obvious those child watch employees were tying one on at an after hours YMCA kegger… AGAIN.Drunks.
>Well, I used to think I had the grossest story: my oldest once puked into my purse and I didn’t know it until the next day when I REACHED IN. Day before, she’d puked into the pocket of a shirt I was wearing, too. Talent. (Only cute toddlerhood saved her!)But yours is a definite tie — yuck! Great post. :o)
>Beer puke in a diaper bag at a gym.Beer puke in a diaper bag at a gym.Beer puke in a diaper bag at a gym.There, I typed it three times, and Beetlejuice didn’t turn up and wreak havoc.I suspect that someone needs to do a serious inspection of the energy drink display at said sweat emporium; or, one may assume that (a) someone’s kid is coming under some bad influences there (b) someone received an unwanted membership, and is quietly trying to get themselves thrown out (c) someone figgers that beers goes well with ANYTHING and found out otherwise after some gnarly ab crunches..in your diaper bag or (d) they decided that worse things than beer puke winds up there, so they were cutting you a break.Start your investigation with the McKenzie Brothers, and work from there…
>I can’t belive you kept it!That sucker would have been in the trash bin so fast!!
>That is totally nasty. I probably would have just thrown it all away.Way to be tough and reduce waste.
>Someone REALLY DID PUKE in my bookbag once. I was so upset! But I washed it five times and kept using it anyway, because, damn, it was a really good bookbag!
>It seems unlikely that if someone needed to puke beer (at a gym no less) they would have time to open your bag, empty it, puke, then put everything back…unless a first degree barf and they were pulling the trigger.Beer puke would be on top of the diaper bag, draining down to the bottom and all over everything.It might have been that pretty mom who’s kid is a terrorist.
>Speaking of…..Don’t forget about Juicy Juice boxes in the back of your fridge and leave them for forever and a day. A child will find them and ask why they taste like “grownup drinks.”
>If it’s the Bellevue Y, there’s been a rash of “incidents” by teens. The lastest is a group of teens trashing the locker rooms and throwing people’s shoes in the trash. Seems like there’s some Bellevue teens that need a lot more to do and have way too much time on their hands!That’s disgusting, by the way. So sorry.
>Wow. This was so graphic I suddenly smelled an unpleasant puke-like odor as I was reading it. Nice storytelling – totally nasty story! I would have thrown the bag and all of its contents away. Nasty!
>Just a thought here, but it was most likely fermented sippy juice. If it *was* puke you would have found it all over everything from the top of the bag down, not just in a pool at the bottom. (Unless of course they took everything out of the bag then blew chunks into it, and put everything back inside; which I just don’t see someone going to the trouble of doing.)
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