The Circle of Barf

When I was about 9 or 10 years old, I spent the day with with my aunt, uncle and cousin. My cousin was about 3 at the time. We all went to a restaurant, and my cousin threw up there. I remember my uncle cupping his hands and trying to catch her puke. I was shocked and horrified. I remember pretty much nothing else about that day but how appalled I was that he was trying catch her barf in his hands. I couldn’t think of any amount of money for which I would do that. Why not just let it fall on the floor and clean it up then when you could wear gloves or something? 

Then yesterday, our 6-year-old son woke up with a stomach-ache. We kept him home from school and thought he was doing better. Until he got in the car and yurked all over the place. My husband was driving and I was in the passenger seat. And you know what I did? I reached around on a highway exit ramp and tried to catch it with my hands. It was an unconscious action. Only a little of it landed on the one hand I could get back there in time. He’d just had milk and thinking of the smell makes me dry heave. Now I had become the catcher of chunderchunks. Such is the circle of life. 

My family had an interesting relationship with yack. You see, vomiting or being around people who vomit is my mother’s biggest fear. There’s a name for it: emetophobia. Her nightmares are about people liberating their lunch on her. (Mine are about peeing in public, like on a toilet that is placed in the middle of the aisle at Target.) While my mom was the more present and nurturing parent in my childhood, there was one thing she wouldn’t do: clean up barf. My dad always got sent in to clean up me, my bedding, and whatever else got hurled on when I was sick. For the entire time I lived at home, there was always an orange bucket within reach of my bed for just such an occasion. We have continued the barf bucket tradition with our children. Their bucket used to hold ice cream. See? The circle of life again. 

So when my son tossed his cookies on the floor at my mom’s house while she was watching him once, (he had strep throat - did you know that can make little kids puke? I didn’t before this) my dad was gone, and she didn’t really know what to do. He’d always been the barf cleaner. So she poured straight bleach onto her pristine hardwood floors. Needless to say, they had to get them refinished. 

I used to be emetophobic, as well, probably feeding off her neurosis. But then I got proper treatment for my anxiety disorder and no longer have a panic attack at the thought of casting forth my accounts or having others do so on me. I’m also just not one to launch the food shuttle very often. I’ve never drank to the point of hurling. I specifically remember the last two times I had reverse diarrhea: 1998 and 2012. In ’98, I’d had caesar salad and it got caught in my braces when it made its return into my mouth. I didn’t eat that again for another five years, at least. In 2012, I got norovirus after eating a $150 dinner with my husband at a fancy-schmancy restaurant for our anniversary. I was about four months pregnant with our first kid. I threw up twice in one hour, sharted in my pajamas the next morning and then was fine. My husband was a continuous fountain from both ends for three days. Even though it had been suppressed by pregnancy, my immune system did and continues to kick his immune system’s ass. 

But probably the most memorable barf of all time was at my fifth-grade Christmas party. My dad and I had gone to a hockey game the night before and eaten popcorn there. I was feeling off the next day, and all I could bring myself to eat at lunchtime were strawberry-flavored fruit snacks. The lunch lady kindly gave me ice water with awesome crushed ice because I didn’t want my juice box. Little did I know that about that same time, my dad was talking to Ralph on the porcelain telephone at his office. Something had been seriously wrong with the hockey arena popcorn. Back at school, I remember everyone in my class sat on the floor in a circle to play a Christmas party game, and that’s when it happened. I lurched forward and barfed everywhere. It landed on the shoes of the girl next to me. Some landed on one of the little prizes for the game. My classmates recoiled in horror. Then I ran down the hall to the bathroom and barfed again on the floor before I made it to the toilet. Luckily, this school was built in the 1930s, and no one thought to put carpet down to make, say, sitting in a circle on the floor, more comfortable, so all the ick was on concrete or tile. The janitor came with whatever vomit-soaker-kitty-litter-magic-mixture it is that all elementary school janitors possess, then threw some bleach on it and called it good. I had to walk about a mile post-vomit to my grandma’s house because she didn’t have a car and my parents were at work. 

Fast-forward to my junior year of high school six years later. I’m sitting in front of a guy on the first day of my civics class whom I had not seen since fifth grade. “I remember you!” he exclaimed. “You threw up at our Christmas party! I’ll never forget, it was pink and had little chunks of ice in it. Man, that was gross!” So that was my legacy. 

And now, my own children are barfing on themselves, me and other people. They are just starting to bring their giggle chunks into the world. Some day, they, too, will leave their blow chum marks on people in ways I can’t even imagine now. (Raising “Lion King” music, Elton John Voice: ) “The ciiiiiiiiiircle of barf!” 

For more great puke synonyms, check out: http://www.c4vct.com/kym/humor/puke.htm.