Addendum: Okay, I actually just looked it up. It is a real word, but it means "water ice," which really doesn't make any sense. C'mon, Italians (pronounced: "Eye-tal-yens")!
I can't believe I'm returning to Davidson in a week. Insane in the membrane, as our great philosopher Flava Flav would say.
Anyway, this story, as a warning, is gross. And I'm not saying that to be cute. It's gross. And embarrassing. But really, at this juncture of my life, I could care less about embarrassing myself, because self-deprication is where the humor's at. So just consider this your "Strobe lights will be used in this performance: epileptics beware" sign.
I get motion sickness extremely easily. I also get boat-sick, car-sick, airplane-sick. Basically, if my body is put into motion by anything other than myself, I'm in trouble. I guess you could say I have a pretty weak stomach, but that would be an understatement; my tummy is about as strong as an ant (sure, some ants can carry up to a thousand times their own body weight, but that's only about two-tenths of a pound, so it's really not that impressive; suck it, ants). This being the case, I do my best to avoid amusement park rides, exorbitantly long car trips, floating around on water, and just generally any activity that involves spinning around in circles at a high speed (e.g. star tripping, chasing my own tail, etc.) Something that exacerbates this motion-sick issue is food; if there's food in my stomach, especially if it's sweet or heavy (e.g. honey buns, lead, etc.), my chances of turning green (not Elphaba Green, more like Asparagus Green; consult your Crayolas if necessary) increase tenfold. This information about myself has taken me years to acquire (a tad bit ironic, I suppose), however, so the sixth-grade me wasn't quite in the loop on this whole bidness (read: business).
It was a seemingly normal morning for sixth-grade me. I awoke at 5:00 a.m.--I'm a morning person; like an "I-might-secretly-be-85-years-old" kind of morning person--and went through my morning routine without missing a beat. Routines are what keep me sane. If you asked me to sweep a chimney, prick my eyes with thorns, and wear navy and black together in the same outfit, I'd look at you like you were a psycho; but, if you asked me to do those things every day, in the form of a routine, I'd be on board. I realize that's kind of bizarre, but so is the idea that a giant mutant bunny lays colorful eggs full of candy, and yet this is what we tell our children.
But I digress.
I bounded down the stairs in my house, backpack in hand, to make myself some breakfast. Usually "making myself breakfast" involved me pouring some Lucky Charms and milk in a bowl or popping a chocolate chip Pop-Tart, both of which are practically pure sugar and neither of which are particularly filling. But clearly I wasn't about to take the five minutes required to microwave myself a scrambled egg, and I certainly wasn't going to eat breakfast at school--I don't even think the stuff they served there could be categorized as edible (in fact, I distinctly remember an incident where a boy managed to saw through a piece of tough plastic with one of the school's "chicken" nuggets.) So I usually settled for the boring cereal and Pop-Tart routine.
But when I rounded the corner to the kitchen that morning, I saw one of the most magnificent sights a child can see: a bag of mini chocolate donuts. Now, I'm obsessed with donuts; how I'm not eight hundred pounds and a potential contestant for Biggest Loser is beyond me, because I eat donuts like it's my job. Put a donut in front of me and my eyes will light up like you've just told me I get to meet Alex Trebek. If you want to poison me, do it with donuts (like that crazy grandma from Flowers in the Attic), because I will not, under any circumstances, be able to resist its doughy, powdery, gooey charms. Needless to say, that bag of minis never stood a chance; I must have eaten at least ten or twelve of them, only stopping because it was time to go catch the bus. I'm not even sure I was really enjoying the donuts; it was more like some kind of Pavlovian response: see donut bag, eat donuts. Simple as that. Had I been able to think rationally during this hypnosis I was under in the presence of the baked treats, I would have thought, "Now maybe eating donuts until I'm sick to my tummy right before I go off to school isn't such a good idea." But alas, the Fates had me right as they wanted me: chock-full of chocolatey donuts. And off I went to the bus stop.
Standing next to the road in the dim light of dawn, I didn't feel too bad. Sure, my stomach was like a basketball (or probably more like a basketball player) lodged in my tiny abdomen, but other than that minor discomfort, I was A.O.K. The bus pulled up, I boarded and awkwardly found a seat (how else can you find a seat on a bus but awkwardly?) and we were off. That bus was a bit like riding around in The Twilight Zone: strange things happened, strange people occupied the seats, strange drivers curbed every corner. My mom always laughs because, almost everywhere I go, I see someone who rode this bus with me. I could be in the jungle in central Africa and happen to pass that guy with the behavioral problems who always wore a camo hoodie, even when it was ninety degrees outside (he would obviously be wearing it in the jungle as well). It's just one of those eerie things.
Naturally, the bus was a great place to do some grade-A people-watching--which is exactly what I was doing that morning. Oh wow, the gothic girl dyed her hair hot pink; I bet her mom is wildly supportive. I think that guy's sleeping with his eyes open; it looks like he's droo--oh, yup, he's definitely drooling. Is that boy holding a Choco Taco wrapper? Who eats Choco Tacos at 6:30 in the morning!? I had plenty of material to keep this up until we arrived at the bus depot, where we'd switch to the buses that would take us to our respective schools (kind of like a two-stop flight with a janky airline). Luckily, I didn't have to switch buses, as the same bus carried me to my final destination, so I just prepared my seat for the next batch of hooligans.
You see, it was fairly early on in the school year, but bus cliques had already begun to form, and there was one girl in particular who was trying to make my life miserable. Okay, she wasn't actually trying to make my life miserable, but she was having that kind of effect nonetheless. She sat by me every single morning; I got no reprieve from her chatter. We had gone to the same elementary school but hadn't been BFF's or anything; now that we boarded the same public school transportation vehicle, however, she acted like I was Paris and she was Nicole (circa the "we're like totally awesome girlfriends for life--wanna snort coke together?" era, not the "I can't believe I was ever friends with that heiress skank--let me go sleep with her boyfriend" era). There were a few other kids on the bus who we socially interacted with (but whom I would not have referred to as my friends), and this seat-hogger thought we were the coolest group of sixth-grade cronies ever to grace those pleather seats. Little did she know, I really just wanted to bash her over the head with my L.L. Bean. I made this clear to her one day when she boarded the bus and saw all of my baggage occupying the seat next to me. "Oh my god, Christine, come on, move your stuff!" she laughed. I didn't budge. I glared at her. "Christine! Seriously!" "There are enough seats on this bus for everyone to sit by him-or-herself. I'm merely exercising my property rights." She tried to move my stuff herself, I yanked it back from her. She looked at me in disbelief before kindly settling herself in the seat next to me. And so it had been for the couple of weeks leading up to the morning of the chocolatey donuts.
Five minutes after we had departed from the depot, I started feeling queasy. I pulled myself out of the conversation about how awesome Lisa Frank folders are and curled up in a ball in my seat, closing my eyes. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. I kept telling myself. We'll be at school before I can even bat an eyelash! I'll be fine. Just listen to the chatter of the high school guys sitting behind me, talking about Nair-ing their chests. That's hysterical, right? Picture how ridiculous that must look, and by no means whatsoever picture food.
But thinking about not thinking about it only made it worse. Little dancing chocolatey donuts began doing leaps in my head, performing synchronized swimming routines in bowls of milk, re-enacting scenes from the movie Chocolat. I couldn't escape them; they were everywhere. I had to open my eyes, but whenever I did, the visual evidence that the bus was in motion made my stomach turn. After a few minutes, I finally accepted my destiny: I was going to puke.
I sat up and began analyzing the situation like I was back on my fourth-grade Problem Solving team. Okay, what am I going to throw up into? Should I tell the bus driver? No, we're on the interstate, and I don't want to risk being hit by a truck going seventy miles per hour just to do a little upchucking. Besides, bus drivers are generally unsympathetic and spiteful, and who needs that when they're about to spew? Not me. Alright, so I'm gonna have to handle this on my own. That's fine. I searched through my backpack to find a suitable receptacle for the half-digested chocolatey donuts. My lunch sack? That should work; isn't this what they have people puke in on airplanes? Yeah, this should do. I'll just throw up into this and then dispose of it on my way to school. No one even has to know.
There were a few problems with this plan, the first of which being that throwing up is kind of loud, and it's a sound that you can't really mistake for something else. I bent myself over in my seat and heaved the contents of my stomach into the paper bag, and when I sat up, the entire bus was staring at me, disgusted. I tried to pretend like nothing had happened, but some of it had gotten on my face, in my hair, and on my clothes, as it was difficult to keep the entire trajectory of my puke session directly in the sack. I gave a half-hearted smile and gently wiped my face. After a few seconds, people went back to their iPods, Gameboys, and plagiarism, and I thought I was scot-free. I began trying to wipe the spew spatter from my jeans and blouse, combed it out of my hair, and removed it from the various locations on my face that it had managed to soil. On the plus side, I was completely rid of my nausea--which, I suppose, makes sense; you can't really be nauseous when there's absolutely nothing left in your stomach. Maybe this was going to turn out better than I had thought.
And then I was struck by panic. The bottom of the paper bag was now thoroughly soggy, and it was threatening to bust open, letting my puke spill all over the bus floor--and me. How could I not have seen this coming? Clearly paper gets soggy when put in contact with liquid. The tap-dancing donuts in my head must have impaired my judgement. Drat it! I needed to get rid of this bag soon, or I'd be covered in my own vomit and forever be known as the girl who puked all over herself on the bus--and in middle school, labels like that stick. I was so close to revamping my reputation from elementary school as the "crazy smart girl" (attempting to change it to the slightly more socially acceptable "quiet smart girl") and a blow like this could be devastating to my progress. Think, Christine! Think!
I briefly considered carrying it up to the makeshift garbage receptacle (a.k.a. a Kroger bag hung from the emergency brake), but that would bring me to the attention of nearly everyone on the bus (as I was located very close to the rear of the vehicle), and the driver would probably yell at me. So that was no good. And then a brilliant idea hit me: I can toss it out the window!
If I could just get the window open, I could litter my chocolatey waste onto the interstate without a soul noticing. It was really the perfect solution. I briefly congratulated myself on my genius before trying to figure out what to do about the window. Bus windows must be opened with two hands, and I couldn't even spare one--if I had let go of any part of the bag, it would have immediately exploded everywhere. I needed an accomplice. I looked across the bus at the seat-hogger.
"Hey . . . Could you maybe open the window for me?"
She stared at me in both contempt and disgust.
"Oh my god, no." She turned away.
I looked around at the riders in my immediate area. Quietly, I mumbled, "Can someone open my window for me? I can't get it."
No one responded. In fact, people moved farther away from me. I think they could sense what I was going to do, and they wanted no part of it. I felt somewhat ashamed at my spew-disposal plan, but I really had no time for self-loathing because, unless I got that stupid window open, this vomit was going to be projectile. I returned my gaze to the girl across from me. I could tell she could feel my eyes on her, but she continued to stare straight ahead. "Hey! Come on . . . Please?" She remained still.
And then I got desperate: "If you don't open this window for me, I'm going to throw this bag at you." Had I said it menacingly, she would have known I was lying. But I said it calmly, unemphatically, like it was just a plain old matter of fact. A look of horror seized her. She took in my deadly serious face. She shot her little patootie up like a rattlesnake attacking Little Bunny Foo Foo, promptly opened up my window, and returned to her seat.
"Thanks."
Without wasting any time, I raised the bag o' puke toward the window, readying it for a launch. I wanted to watch for an ideal opportunity to release it into the wild, but I knew I had no time for that kind of luxury. I let go of the bag and, not a second later, heard a loud splat.
I had nailed the windshield of a black Honda Civic.
Oh. My. God.
I watched the driver pull over to the shoulder of the interstate before we drove out of view. To this day I think about how that poor guy must have reacted to such a horrific incident. I often wonder if he saw my face as I fired the missile from the window, and if he's going to see me around town one of these days and beat me with crowbar. I'm always subconsciously on the lookout for any behavior that might tip me off to this guy's revenge.
I put the window back up and tried to compose myself. The girl across the aisle couldn't even look at me, but everyone else seemed to have gone back to their own business. Save for a few victims along the way, I pulled this plan off without a hitch.
When I walked into homeroom that morning, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I had solved quite a conundrum all on my own, and none of these people would ever know the turmoil my poor tummy had gone through that morning. I settled into my desk, getting out my unicorn notebook and shooting star pencil, ready to conquer the day's challenges.
"Hey, Christine, you've got some brown stuff on your cheek. I think you might have a little on your ear, too."
I froze.
"Oh, huh, that's weird. I better go to the bathroom and wash it off."
I bolted to the little girls' room, cleaned myself up, and waited long enough for the blood to drain from my cheeks.
That was a close one.
And, while I didn't become known as the girl who puked on the bus and threw it out the window, I did become this ridiculous, pleather-clad atrocity, so I guess it wasn't much better:
1 comments:
You might want to add that this was not your routine middle school attire. The dance team made you look like a Marilyn Manson groupie!
And by the way, this is freaking fantastic!
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