It’s good to share,
especially bodily fluids and substances, and some time ago I shared with you, Dear
Reader, the top 10 poo-related tales from my life. Such an out-pouring of nostalgic
self-indulgent depravity garnered more plaudits than most other blog posts of
mine; and so it is, that I now develop that theme and spew forth from my past my
top 10 vomit-related incidents.
10. The 70s was a great
time for car and coach travel. There was
no air-con, the suspension in most vehicles was as flexible as a concrete slab
being dragged down a stone staircase and a relaxed attitude to car safety meant
sitting wherever there was room. We holidayed
a lot in a caravan that we towed to Cornwall, my family and my Uncle, Aunt and
cousins, crammed into a Volvo estate, dragging the portable holiday home along
the A303 at 60 mph for about 8 eight hours, all the kids in the boot. I’d last about two hours before feeling ill, regardless
of the travel sweets, at which point I’d clamber from boot to back seat and sit
on my Mum’s lap, head out of the window.
Despite the G-force and the consequent flapping of my cheeks so that my
face appeared to crawl backwards behind my ears, I wouldn’t feel any better,
and at some point I’d vomit. At that
speed, the sick would spread itself all over the back window of the estate car. Completely.
We’d arrive at the caravan site and my Mum would retrieve a spatula
intended for the Bar-B-Q and sort out the by-now-crusty layer of discarded
breakfast.
9. I won’t be taking the credit for every vomit
in this list. This one goes to my friend
Pat, aka “CJ” which stood for Cambodian Joe, a rather cruel nickname bestowed
on him at secondary school on account of his lithe frame and the famine
ravaging Indo-China at the time. Ceej
(short for CJ) liked a Guinness and on no less than two occasions demonstrated
his stylish “puke-while-you-walk” move.
Strolling between pubs he would turn his head to one side and hurl over
his shoulder without even breaking stride.
With a cool wipe of his mouth he’d assure us that he was OK and the next
round was on him.
8. Running the risk of
repeating myself, in case you missed it in the poo-related list, the puke my
little brother did in response to the turd I left in the bath makes the top ten
here. I’ll let you investigate the
details from that earlier blog post, but suffice it to say, there was no water
in the bath, I was experimenting and my Mum bloody killed me afterwards.
7. My first ever trip
abroad was a day-trip to Boulogne when I was about 13. I vomited before we hit the coast and cringed
to see the resultant hot gut-juice find the gully on the coach that carried it
five rows of seats towards the back. My
partner for the trip was allowed to move away, the teacher scolded me for not
forewarning him and securing the service of the available bucket and I spent
the day in France lurking round the alleyways of the town, alone, enduring the
after-shock mini-pukes and generally feeling like a complete fucking leper.
6. At a more mature age, nearing
40, and as Head of the Humanities faculty at the school in which I worked, I
felt it to be correct and appropriate to set a good example to those younger
colleagues for whom an end of term night out required the multiple consumption
of shots. I proved that I could take
those shots like the best of them. It
wasn’t the Sambuca that caused me to ask my wife to stop the car three times on
the way home so I could puke, it was my car-sickness. I get car-sick, that’s all. Nothing to do with Sambuca.
5. As a student, I went
inter-railing with three mates. Our
first night was spent on a ferry crossing from Harwich to the Hook of
Holland. Once the bar closed, the need
for alcohol (peer-pressure, of course – none of us really “wanted” anymore) lured
us to check out the duty free shop where they sold a liquor called “Underburg”. By the morning, given the motion of the sea
and the delicate constitution of yours truly, I had added the prefix “Ch” to
that drink.
4. My most recent sick was
last week. I had my normal breakfast of
four Weetabix (with chocolate chips in it), took out my phone, belched and
deposited a mouthful on my phone-case. A
bit out of the blue, that.
3. Names and details
spared, I was once (it was one of very few times) kissing a girl, when I had to
turn to vomit. Drunkenness is a
wonderful tool for getting someone to suspend their taste and dignity long
enough to kiss you, but that suspension didn’t extend to continue a kiss after
I’d done some interior decorating of my mouth with burning hot beer-fuelled
stomach bile. And I’d assumed she wasn’t
that fussy.
2. I worked in a pub in
Reading, while at University, called The Turk’s Head. On my 20th birthday, which started
in a different pub at noon and finished in the Turk’s, my friends decided to
kindly present me with a gift of a “Turk’s Head” t-shirt. I put it straight on and it remained in its
pristine, washing-powder-advert state of purest white for about half-an-hour,
before I decided to lie down in a puddle of piss right underneath the urinals
and get sick all over myself. Come the
morning, I felt that no washing powder advert would persuade me to do anything
other than dispose of the thing.
1. School trips at primary
school tended to be to either Devon or Somerset. Either way, a fucking long trek on a 1970s
coach. Something marginally less
comfortable than being held hostage by terrorists. On one particular day trip from Combe Martin
on the north Devon coast to Exeter in the South, I happened to prepare for the
hour-long journey back by purchasing a can of limeade and a mint-choc-chip
Cornetto. The offspring of this unwise
combination, coming as it did at the moment when I stepped off the coach
outside our hotel, was as green as summer grass and as toxic as nuclear
waste. There was no doubting that my
pre-journey snack had proved a poor choice.
So there we are, the contents
of ten stomach-churning tales. We have
all met Hughie and Ralph for one reason or another. They are our friends and
don’t forget, it is only for that moment in which it happens that getting sick
isn’t one of life’s most laudable and levelling pleasures.
