By Maura Madden

After this weekend, I've got a new nickname. From here on in, you can call me "Fast Hands", or "F.H." for short. Or if you're my best friend's dad, you can call me by my new full name, Maura "Fast Hands" Madden. Having your best friendÕs dad refer to you as "Fast Hands" is really not okay. But that's what happens after a weekend at the beach - things get a little crazy, and the next thing you know, you've got a new nickname.

 That's not what I anticipated when I was planning for the weekend. Our destination was a small island off the coast of Connecticut, where there are only 52 houses and no electricity. To get there, you have to have your own little motorboat, 'cause it's too small for ferry service. The quaint factor is quite high. The crew assembled was as mellow as can be - my best friend the poet, my co-worker at the non-profit HMO, her six-year-old daughter and me. Another friend was going to join us, but when my co-worker had car trouble and we were unsure of how and when we were getting there, we decided it would be best to not meet up in a parking lot in at an undetermined time. So it was just the four of us leaving the city Saturday morning in a tiny red rental car, making our way from Brooklyn to Manhattan, up the FDR, over the Bruckner Expressway and on to I-95 North. We were adequately prepared for our journey. We had coffee, fruit, and a bag of mini-muffins. We had a CD player and air conditioning. We had our go-getter attitudes. We were out to rock Connecticut.

 There was no traffic getting out of the city, and so we felt like travel-planning rockstars. But as we hit the beginning of the Connecticut trail, things started to slow down. The little one was not taking too well to the traffic, so I tried to interest her in the items packed in her little bag. She tried a book of mazes for a few minutes and then stopped - too boring. So I brought out the big guns - a book of riddles. We started reading them together - I would read the sing-song-y question/poem while she looked at the picture and tried to figure out what was being referred to. We did a bunch of these, and they were hard, but she was getting them quickly, although she claimed she had never read the book before. I didn't believe her, and I was getting bored. They were bad poems, and the pictures were too obvious - they had a picture of a moose getting a haircut for the riddle about a moose. What is the point of the riddle if you've got a picture of the answer? And my friends up front were having some kind of exciting conversation about the idiocy of boys, and I was missing it to read riddles. I tried reading the riddles while training one ear towards the front-seat conversation. It was very difficult. I wanted to interject but I knew I had to keep up the appearance of being engaged with the reading material. So I plodded along.

 Then the little one said, "Maybe we should stop reading." It was as if the heavens had opened up and my unsaid prayers were being answered.

 "Sure," I said, slamming the book shut. "It seems like a good time for a nap."

 The little one looked listlessly out the window. "Okay," she replied softly. She looked a little weird. I then realized that the reading might have made her feel slightly nauseated. It used to happen to me all the time when I was a kid. Sleep was the best remedy for me, so I left her alone and happily joined the front seat conversation. I shoved the book back into the bag and leaned forward. The traffic was getting worse. Suddenly I heard a sound from the backseat. "Mom," she moaned, "I don't feel so good." I looked over at her, and she was resting her adorable face on the window, a face now red and flushed like a giant cherry. Her mom did the quick-child-check-via-rearview-mirror. She looked panicked. I looked at the little one again. Now I was panicked.

 "I think I'm going to throw up," she said. And she meant it. Her eyes were practically popping out of her head, tiny beads of kid-sweat were gathering on her cheeks, and it looked as though she were fighting to keep her mouth shut.

 "Should I pull over?" her mom frantically asked, but we were in the middle lane, and there was no shoulder. Pulling over was not an option. Whatever was coming out of the child was coming out in the car. My best friend started to empty a plastic bag, but she didn't seem to grasp the urgency of this situation. She was gingerly taking items out of a full grocery bag, practically pausing to look at each one. There was no way she was going to be done in time. I could see I was going to have to take things into my own hands. I grabbed the only available bag and shoved it under her face. I was just in time to catch the eruption.

 Her mom looked back through the rear-view mirror. My best friend whipped her head around. I just calmly rubbed the little one's back and held the special bag. "Pull over at the next exit," I commanded. As we turned off the road, I cleared my throat.

 "I'm sorry," I said, "but we don't have any more mini-muffins. I had to use the bag."

 They looked back at me. I was holding the bag at an arm's length, like some kind of shield against their muffin-lovers anger. But I should have known they wouldn't care. "Oh my god, that's fine!" they yelled in unison.

 At the gas station, my best friend called her father for more directions, and ended up blurting out the story. Her dad couldn't hide how impressed he was with my quick thinking in the face of vomit. "You should call her Maura 'Fast Hands' Madden," he quipped. The man had a point.

 When we got back on the road, within miles there was another bout of sickness. My best friend had moved to the back to do her tour of duty, but was not truly prepared for a second round of attacks. So when the little one announced her repeat performance, my best friend was not prepared. She was looking for a bag, just as slow as molasses, and I could see that once again, we were running out of time. I reached over the seat and grabbed the bag containing the riddle book and dumped out the contents in a nanosecond. I then shoved it under the explosive mouth just in time for round two. Luckily, the bag was made of vinyl, so later on it was easy to clean. Unfortunately, it was clear vinyl. I was all too happy not to be left holding that bag.

 Lucky for all of us, there were no more rounds. The child felt much better in time, her mood getting brighter as we approached our destination. She was a super trooper - despite throwing up twice, she did not cry once. She just threw up and was done with it. I still cry when I throw up, and I'm a big girl. And the island was pure bliss. The sun was shining, the water was warm, and the breeze was softly blowing. And when I took the little one for a piggyback ride, she didn't have a lick of motion sickness.