why is everyone in italy right now?

and more importantly, how?

i have chicken soup cooking on the stove, my house smells incredible. while i let that simmer, let’s recap:

there was no newsletter last week because i was celebrating the jewish holiday, shavuot and the long weekend. it’s nice to be back! there were a couple of child barf incidents that i encountered, and since this newsletter is called ‘am i gonna throw up?’ after all, we will 100% be getting into it.

i think i handled both incidents pretty well, all things considered. my 3-year-old niece who was visiting had a horrible cough. she coughed so hard that she vomited on my bedroom floor. my sister-in-law was shocked at how chill i was about it. maybe because i knew it was from a cough a not a stomach bug? who knows. either way, as long as i wasn’t the one cleaning it up, i was totally fine. the second incident was at a memorial day bbq at our friend’s house. there were other families with children there. one of the children wasn’t feeling well and i had a suspicious feeling he was going to be sick, so i stayed away. his mom told him that he needed to take a chewable motrin if he wanted to feel better (to paint a good picture: everyone was sitting around the table, eating). he had a hard time chewing the medicine and was gagging (i would too, grape flavored anything is nasty as shit). at this point, i knew it was coming. ⚠️ TW FOR EMETOPHOBIC PEOPLE: seconds later, the kid started vomiting a salad of blue gatorade, hot dog, salami, and of course, the chewable. ⚠️ i immediately got up from the table as it was still happening — i didn’t want to get throw up on myself. weirdly, i was okay! i started to feel the beginnings of what could have been a mild panic attack (like i usually have when this kind of stuff occurs), but instead shifted my mindset to tell myself that i was going to be okay. and at the end of the day, i did feel very bad for this kid, poor guy. my friends joked that i would write about this in my newsletter, and boy were they right!

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now, for the title of this newsletter:

WHY IS EVERYONE IN ITALY RIGHT NOW?