This is disgusting but also amusing, I hope
November 6, 2011Last night I threw up, and this would not be worth noting except for the fact that I have not thrown up since 1978. It was at Hershey Park, I was nine, and, you know. Chocolate bars. Amusement park rides. There was nothing traumatic about that incident, so I'm not sure why I developed a huge fear of throwing up. Oh, but I did! (Huge. Like, cried throughout the first trimester of pregnancy because It might happen. Hyperventilated at the thought of caring for a sick child. Wept if someone threw up in a movie. Still haven't forgiven best friend for sending "funny" picture of one drunk guy puking pretzels and beer on another drunk guy. Huge.)
At some point I controlled my fear by deciding that I would simply not throw up, ever again. Just wouldn't! No matter what occurred in my digestive system, I would fight the urge until it passed.
I am as surprised as anyone that this worked so well.
My pukeophobia eased up somewhat as Henry grew up, and I saw how utterly blasé he was about the act. Once he got carsick and immediately after announced, "Wow! Throwing up is magic!" And then asked for a cookie.
This is all gross, I know. I apologize. If there are any fellow phobics out there, I am well and truly sorry. But maybe this will heal you! Read on!
Anyway, last night I was out visiting a friend, and I endured a thrill-ride cab ride home, during which I began feeling distinctly unwell. Things were not good. I don't know whether it was the takeout Indian, or the wine, or the ride, or the existential horror. Whatever it was, I had the awful realization, as I hobbled to my front door, that this quease would not pass in a few minutes. Guess what, it was saying. Still, I tried to ignore it and get ready for bed as if I were fine, la la la, but my stomach, she demanded my attention. Events were in motion. I could have stayed up all night gritting my teeth and willing myself to continue my decades-long streak, but I gave up. Let's see if this is as all magical as Henry says it is, I thought.
Now, here's the thing. The thing is. My brand-new downstairs neighbors had entered the building right before me. I saw them walking in as I paid for the cab. They turned and saw me. Then ten minutes later I clomped up the stairs in my boots and was … in the bathroom. The bathroom, wherein all sounds carry from apartment to apartment as clearly as if the person were standing right there next to you.
And you guys. I was SO LOUD. I was like a barfing cartoon character. I couldn't control it. I sounded like a muppet puking up major appliances. Like a tortured elephant. Like I was performing self-exorcism and Baalphegor himself had just emerged from my headholes. My husband tweeted about how I loud I was, is how loud. I'm surprised no one on my block called Animal Control.
I don't recall being this vocal when I was little. It was like the entire act was so unnatural to me that every part of my body had to get in on the action. I wasn't trying to be dramatic, but every time another wave came over me-- HEEEEEEEUUYYYOOOOOOOOOOO.
Okay, I need to relax, I thought. I'm just tense so my stomach is spasming and--
BLOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRGHARGHARGHARG.
Scott was knocking on the door, asking if he could come in. I wanted to shout GO AWAY I'M A MONSTER but I didn't have the strength. I needed to save up all my vocal stylings for the next go-round.
GLOOOOOOORPAMOPHOOOOOUL.
As awful as I felt, part of me was cracking up, picturing my poor neighbors downstairs, merrily brushing their teeth after a night out, stopping to look at each other with alarm as their probably psychotic/bulimic neighbor upstairs performed what I'm sure they assume is her nightly ritual.
YAAAAAAAAAABLBLABLAAARRRRRRF.
Have I mentioned that I have not yet met my downstairs neighbors? Yeah. How do I introduce myself now? "Hey! Hello! You might remember me from such sounds as aaaWWWWRRRROOOUUUUUK. Ha, ha! Fun. Hey, hope I didn't ruin your night with my awful. Let me tell you what I ate last night and will never eat again! Where are you going?"
Fortunately the bout was over quickly. I don't think my vocal cords could have taken much more. While I can't say it was magical like Henry promised, I was not nearly as traumatized as I imagined I would be. Still, I think I'm good for another 33 years. Now I'm wondering if I should buy the neighbors some kind of housewarming gift. Maybe a nice gift bucket of corn chowder! No?
Reader Comments (76)
I THOUGHT I felt a disturbance in the Force! Glad the world didn't end. I'm still scared to death after 36 years of non-puking.
Yes! Both disgusting AND amusing. The comments have also been amusing. (Until this one.) Bravo to you all.
I'm glad you've been healed of your phobia, but mine is alive and well! I haven't thrown up in 37 years, and I don't plan to anytime soon. A few years ago everyone in my family got a horrible stomach flu - there were sick people lying all over the house vomiting over and over, and I was miserably sick for a solid week but never threw up. The only thing that even makes me feel close to throwing up is hearing someone else hurl. My husband got sick and threw up a couple of weeks ago and I had to put earplugs in and cover my head with a pillow because he was being incredibly loud.
I think I've made myself numb to nauseating things by listening to a lot of family vomit stories and reading things like this: www.vomitnames.com. "Engage in an involuntary personal protein spill" is one of my favorites, credited to George Carlin.
I haven't laughed this hard at a puking story in...ever. Because I too have The Phobia. And also, I had a very similar realization about how loud I was vomitting the last time it happened (and this is where it's going to sound incredibly exotic, but it was not) in a hotel in the Tunisian Sahara after some bad couscous and a long and bumpy ride through the desert. My room was just off the main marbled lobby (that echoed like a great big echoing thing) and it was as if my body was saying, "Dear People of Tunisia and Fellow Travelers, I am dying. I will not be ignored in my final hours!"
Hope you're feeling better. People say that barfing helps but I've only experienced the Pray For Death kind.
Oh my god. Please tell me you know about the Seinfeld episode where he pukes from a black and white cookie after not barfing for years and years. You know about it, right? It's like you made it happen in real life.
I hate throwing up. I would rather have all my teeth pulled, and vinegar poured over the open wounds. But alas, I am a puker.
I think Mimi Smartypants wrote once that there are pukers and non-pukers. I've always been a puker: I'm not sure I've had ever had one vomit-free year (never by design). I don't want to watch anyone else puke and I don't exactly enjoy it, but I find nausea torturous, so I'd always rather be sick. It's SUCH a relief. So congrats, I guess. I hope your next time is less loud and violent. You'll get used to it!
Oh, Alice, I'm a phobic too. Not of the act, but of the idea of it. Of others doing it. Of the anticipation of it. The actual thing? Well, I'm with Henry on that. (It's not very logical, this phobia thing.) I hope that you're feeling as empowered as it sounds like you are. It's an awful fear to have, especially with social media being what it is. People do love to share their stories, and for every one I read, my anxiety goes up a bit. But yours, well, yours didn't do that. Perhaps because I know you're my people. You tell your story not to shock or evoke pity, but to tell us you came through on the other side. So thanks for that... For a puke story I can actually feel good about.
I throw up like that and always have. My father did, too, and his finest hour was at an MLA conference in New Orleans, where a potential professorial candidate was being interviewed in the next room by his colleagues. Dad got rid of the better part of his, I am sorry to report, "Poppy's Breakfast Special," rinsed his mouth, came out and said, "Allow me to introduce myself; I am the phantom chunderer."
I do not know if the poor candidate was aware that "chunder" is Aussie slang for "puke," but presumably he is now.
I am also a fervent non puker and have been for the passed fourteen years. Through college binge drinking, food poisoning, and even six weeks of morning sickness I have firmly held my ground and hope to continue doing so...well, FOREVER. The only time in recent memory that I came close to throwing up was while giving birth to my son. Natural childbirth (not by choice, funny story, epidurals don't work on me, go fig), I had a 15 hour labor, and apparently it is common to get nauseated and throw up toward the end of this process (who knew?). I just remember lying in the hospital bed in twisted agony with my face in one of those plastic vomit tubs and repeating out loud to no one in particular between contractions, "Do Not Throw Up Do Not Throw Up Do Not Throw Up". It was a proud moment for me. =)
the laughter, oh the laughter.
i, too, have a pukeophobia. and i could go on with my stories, but it wouldn't be as good a read as this post just was, so i'll just stop now.
I'm sorry you went through this, but boy howdy am I glad to know I am not the only one who sounds like a "muppet puking up major appliances." It's not that I expect to be graceful and elegant while vomiting, but I wish I could achieve a small amount of decorum or at least cut down on the guttural noises.
So sorry for loving this so much. And yes, gross, but HILARIOUS.
I, too, recently suffered from an evening of puking after long (years, but not decades) hiatus. I have no insights to offer except that I found nothing especially funny about barfing. Perhaps I was out of practice? You, however, have transformed your upchuck into a hysterically funny anecdote, and THAT is magic.
Seriously. This was hilarious, and I'm not laughing at your pain and agony, but at the situation. I'm laughing NEAR you. Not AT you.
At the tail end of my second pregnancy last March, I was walking from the car to the house and I sneezed. Hard. And this set off a peristaltic chain reaction and I threw up EIGHT TIMES. I mean...I was outside, and I puked. Then I got myself in the house and I puked. And I made it to the toilet (and tried to bend over but the GIANT BABY IN MY TUMMY made that hard) so I puked all over the bathroom floor. And at that point it was just ridiculous because I was covered in it. Ugh. Disgusting.
Fortunately, unlike Baby Boy #1, #2 is not much of a spitter-upper. But when he does, it's everything in his GI tract from esophagus to anus. It's unbelievable.
I'm sorry you had to barf, but glad we got to laugh at/near it.
I'm not particularly pukeophbic myself but I AM completely pukeophobic of Jon throwing up. He seems to share your cartoon-character puking disease, it's SO LOUD he's SCREAMING INTO THE TOILET OMFG.
For a few years we lived in two room apartment and I would be laying in bed mere feet from where he was screaming into the toilet with only a rickety fiberglass door between us. That was the night I cursed champagne. And the day after, when we were house-shopping and he threw up into the toilet in that random condo we were touring as it echoed off the empty walls. I cursed it then too.
Those sounds were your body explaining how badly it's wanted to throw up lo these many years, but no, you were always too dainty, too much of a delicate flower to allow nature to take its course out of your mouth. Do you see what happens when you try to thwart nature? Your building turns into Alice's Vomitorium.
No more thwarting.
Well, if it weren't for how totally I can relate to your fear, I would be laughing. Instead, I am thinking that since I last threw up in 1984, I must be good for another 6 years or so.
My former shrink told me having kids and exposure would help me deal with my vomitaphobia, and it did, sort of. IN that I can bear it when they barf. But I still just can't contemplate me doing it.
Control issues, anyone?
At least reading your post and a lot the comments, I feel comfort in knowing I am not alone.
Glad you survived.
Oh my heavens I am crying and not-so-successfully stifling huge bursts of laughter (due to being in my cube at work). Seriously, so funny. Because I can totally relate. I had a wicked long no-puke streak going as well until some food poisoning did me in. I find the whole idea of puking totally horrifying so it seems I'm a little dramatic about the act as well. So says my husband. I just do whatever comes naturally. Ugh. So gross. But I have now accepted that sometimes, that's just what needs to happen because it really is better than moaning while curled up in a ball pretending it will go away if you could just fall asleep. But still so gross. Thanks for the laugh!
Just a little addendum to my comment to say that I have had to stop reading the comments because they are too hilarious and trying to hold all this laughter in any longer may just make me puke.
"Hey, hope I didn't ruin your night with my awful."
Was this a typo or are you purposely using 'awful' as a noun? Because 'awful' as a noun is so amazing and I'm stealing it, thanks.
I'm sorry you were sick but this whole post was amazing. And the comments are too. You people are funny, even when you're discussing vomit.
Luda, I originally had a noun after "awful" but then I thought "awful" worked better on its own. AWFUL AS NOUN!
Oh man, I'm a fellow pukeaphobic, HATE to throw up. But I just want you to know that the next time I am forced to do it, I will remember this and LaughVomit.
A friend of mine refers to this as "yelling at the toilet." That phrase, combined with your absolutely hilarious story, will never again allow me to vomit without laughing. This could get dangerous.
I had to puke at my quiet and serene acupuncturist's office. I am a LOUD barfer. When I came out of the bathroom the expression on her face was one of extreme horror and physical pain. She still treads with caution around me.