Hello, carpool calling

I was home sick on Thursday.
I had the flu, which sucks for at least two notable reasons:

(1) Vomiting. (And I think you'll agree that vomiting while sober is a little too, um, sobering. I've found -- or at least I found during my college years -- that vomiting is best done when one's mental capacities are somewhat dulled.)

(2) Carpool withdrawals.

Although no one in the carpool could do anything to help me with my number (1) problem (nor would any of them probably want to know about it), the carpool members were thoughtful enough to help me with my carpool withdrawals.

At about 5:05 pm, when the pool must have just been starting the long ride back to Portland, I received a call from Madd Dogg, pleading for help. As it happened, Sparky was being a [insert obscene word], and she wondered if I could make him stop.

"What is he doing?" I asked. I felt like the advice nurse that I had called only hours before, attempting to diagnose the problem from miles away.

"He's repeating everything I say in a high-pitched voice," she said woefully. And indeed, I could hear Sparky's mock whimperings of that very sentence in the background. "Will you make him stop? Mumbles just keeps saying that he doesn't want to get in the middle of it."

"Ok, put him on," I said.

Needless to say, Sparky had a somewhat different version of events. Although he admitted that he was imitating Madd Dogg (and how could he deny it), it was apparently her fault. "She's being extra-cantankerous today. She punched me and pulled on the back of my jacket, and she's just generally being a [insert obscene word]."

I quickly realized that I could never determine with any level of accuracy which of them truly was at fault. They both had memories like elephants; and given time, they would each remember some earlier reason why the other one started the fight. (That would go on, likely, until each of their births were to blame.) So I attempted to appeal to Sparky as the so-called "mature" one.

"Ok, well, could you just stop saying everything that she says?"

Not surprisingly, he turned on me: "Oh, you're not going to be that dog who just takes her side. Don't be that dog."

But I was going to be that dog. And that's ok because I knew that Madd Dogg and Sparky would continue to snipe at each other for a couple of minutes, but that they would soon stop. Mumbles would tell a story from the back seat, much of which would be inaudible. And I would go lie down, feeling nauseated, but glad to have been included in the carpool ride home.