A Sneeze Named Sally and the Three Stages of Stress Management

There was sneeze number 27. There were so many sneezes they ought to have names. We’ll call that one Sally—Sally the Sneeze. I looked around the room, envisioning a thick cloud of yellow pollen particles drifting in the air. I was drowning in pollen and laundry, but just managing to keep my head high enough above the dryer lent to introduce Sally to the world.

My nephew came into the room just as Sally was making her entrance. My nephew was the owner of a quarter of the above mentioned laundry. I handed some to him as he spoke.

“Can I have more ice cream?”

I looked curiously at the boy. At only seven years of age and sporting a trim physic, the boy had already plowed through half the kitchen in a matter of eight hours. He had consumed one sizeable watermelon entirely on his own, which prompted me to start working on alliteration.

Stage One of Stress Management: Alliteration

We will need to change your name to Wilbur, and turn you into a girl, so that we can start calling you Wilbur the Watermelon Woman.

Alliteration is something that happens this time of year, as a byproduct of drowning in laundry, and related problems. It is all very complex sounding, but is quite simple. During times of stress, the mind comes up with little relief techniques.

Right now I am in the middle of a span of summer scheduled for special shenanigans. Shenanigans that inevitably happen when we take the cousins for a week or so. There is this amazing thing that happens when you put your nieces and nephews together with your own children.

It is magical, it is camera-worthy, is very special—it is mounds of wet towels and bathing suits, sand and more sand on the living room floor, a kitchen reduced to empty bags and watermelon rinds. (It is also lots of giggles and unique bonds that will last a lifetime, but everybody knows that.)

“Seconds on ice cream?” I leveled my eyes at him. “You had a lot of dairy with dinner, I don’t think you need the extra. Besides, I’m about to make popcorn for the movie.”

“But popcorn has dairy in it.”

“It has a tiny bit of butter.”

“But you make it with milk.”

“What? No…”

He wondered off, not because he was wrong but because he had lost interest. I had a vision of him as a car salesman in another fifteen years.

I folded a fluffy flowery frock that fit perfectly on a petite pile of pants. They belonged to my niece. I was moving onto a very small stretchy shirt, when the tot wondered in. She was holding up a playing card she had helped herself to, pointing at the queen on it with enthusiasm as she made up a story.

“She had to hold on tight to the kite string so that it didn’t get pulled out of her little hands,” she said with big, wise eyes.

“Right as a kite,” I blurted out, blinking as I processed what had just happened.

Stage Two of Stress Management: Rhyming

Noise came charging into the small laundry room like a stampede, and I expected to not be able to make out the figures causing it because of the cloud of dust that would precede them. Instead, there stood two boys.

“He was going to hit me with something hard! Like something metal!”

“He put a rock on my head!”

“Boys, stop injuring each other,” I said, blinking at smeared dirty faces that seemed to have absorbed that cloud of dust that was supposed to precede them. Their faces are dirt smeared, things are starting to get really weird. I shook the thought from my head as I returned to vigorously yanking clothes out of the dryer.

“I did not put a rock on his head! Just look at the security cameras, if you have them! They would show I didn’t put a rock on his head!”

Pull the security camera he said; better yet, just send them all to bed. I tapped my fingernails against the metal side of the washing machine as the boys disappeared again, as suddenly as that imaginary cloud of dust had arrived.

What comes after rhyming? I’ve never gone beyond rhyming? What does it all mean?

“This one has magical changing colors that turn people into princesses,” the tot said, gesturing to an Uno card she had scavenged from somewhere that I had yet to even discover was in disorder. I nodded enthusiastically.

“Mom!” The boy rushed in. “He won’t stop poking me!”

Then I started to laugh. I felt it start in my stomach, and rise up through my chest, until it turned my lips into a happy curve, and burst outward, not unlike the uncontrollable explosion of Sally.

Stage Three of Stress Management: Uncontrolled Laughter

It is pure genius. It is the best possible way to expend frustration. It feels good, kind of like how a sneeze feels good.

Speaking of sneezes, here comes Sally’s cousin, number 28. Let’s call her Samantha.