AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation sits unread upon my bookshelf, a gift from the brother. I know that I need to read it. I know that I need to stop eating at McDonald's and its kin. And, the child and I end up at McDonald's for lunch anyway, after Drawing Space and a trip to Elliott Bay Book Company, because it is easy and convenient and on our way home.

All of the packaging of the food is a sickly green as a tie-in to the third Shrek film—green milk jug, green straws, green plastic bag of apples. Shrek is everywhere. The child notices that the top of our table is also the same sickly green as the current ad campaign. I keep thinking of the color of the fourth horse of the Apocalypse: sickly green.

Appropriately, after we are home for about two hours, the child begins to vomit forth all of her McDonald's. Twenty minutes later, it is followed by breakfast. Twenty more minutes, bile is all that is left to exit the child's stomach. The rest of the day and early evening are spent attending to the child's needs and making sure that she is comfortable. She dry heaves every so often.

Sleep is fitful for the child, which means that it is also fitful for me. I sleep on the couch, in order to attend to the child as she wakes throughout the evening and early hours of the morning. My dreams are sickly green.