Jacob Martinez

I woke up with a huge scratch on my face by my mouth that I must have given myself in my sleep. I want to go out but I don’t want people to look at me weird. I also can’t shave because I don’t want people to think that I cut myself shaving.

A Personal History of Vomiting

The following post contains terrible, terrible, imagery. Read at your own risk.

I can count the number of times I’ve vomited (excluding when I was a baby) on one hand. Today I added to that number, but I’ll get to that later… first we have to start at the beginning.

One of the earliest memories I have of vomiting was during the premier of the CatDog movie, CatDog: The Great Parent Mystery in 2000. I was 12 years old and had some kind of relentless stomach bug that wouldn’t let me keep anything down. I was vomiting even water. As I watched the movie I sipped purple Gatorade and immediately threw it back up, unchanged, into a trashcan next to me. The movie was so good I don’t think I even payed any attention to the vomiting. Normally vomiting is the worst experience ever for me, one that I will try my hardest at all costs to prevent, as you’ll see later, but this time I guess I was doing it so often that I just got used to it.

It wasn’t until years later that I threw up again. By this point I had started to pride myself on how long it had been since I threw up, like Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother, I was vomit free for many years. My mother and father were at a concert, Elton John, I think, and they were out until late that night. Earlier that day I had come down with something and my stomach was a tumult. Moving didn’t help any, so I stayed on the couch all day flipping through channels. Eventually I came across The Shawshank Redemption playing on TV. It must have been on a movie channel because I don’t remember any commercials. I had never seen it before and I quickly became captivated by it. I now consider it one of my favorite movies. I never left that couch the entire time, and the movie was so good that I forgot all about my illness. After the movie ended and I had dabbed away my tears, I headed upstairs for bed. I was in bed only for an hour or so when the wave of nausea hit me. I went to the bathroom and tried my hardest not to vomit. It didn’t work. Sitting on the toilet, I threw up onto the floor of the bathroom and my boxers around my ankles. I don’t know what it was that I ate that day, but the vomit was chunky and dark.

Soon, many more years passed, it was 2011. I survived the rest of high school, and the first 3 or so years of college without another incident. This was my longest streak yet when it came tumbling down in the most anti-climactic way possible. After a day of fever I suddenly felt nauseous and stumbled into the bathroom. I fought against the beast but it was too strong. I ended up producing the most delicate movie actor vomit ever; what appeared to be half a cup of water came up out of me, and that was the end of it. The next many days remained unpleasant, but for a different reason.

Finally we’ve reached today. Last night, I woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming of basketball which I had been watching before bed. The nausea hit me, and I grabbed a towel and ran to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and put the towel around my head, I was not going to vomit, not if I had anything to do with it. It was difficult, but I managed to use my Vulcan mind discipline to subside the urge and I had diarrhea instead. The next morning I didn’t feel as bad, but I was at about 70% functionality through the day. Towards the end I stayed on the couch to ease my stomach which felt like it was about to burst despite not eating anything all day. I watched the Celtics play the Heat, and went to bed before it ended. I awoke again after dreaming about basketball, but this was more than just a dream. In my sleep I had uncovered a truth about the seedy underpinnings of the NBA. My stomach was large and distended and very tight, I called it my Celtics stomach. I knew that it held the key to their victory or defeat, but not just theirs, every teams. I had to get to the bottom of this. I went into the bathroom, it was all clear to me. The Celtics, the Heat, the Pacers, David Stern. It was all a huge conspiracy. Every three point shot, every layup was orchestrated in advance by powers beyond control. My Celtics stomach had revealed the truth to me. I paced back and forth in the bathroom and suddenly my insides came rushing out. I vomited more at one time than I ever have. It was almost comical, the way they do it on Saturday Night Live where the guy puts his hand to his mouth and some kind of device sprays fake vomit out at a hundred miles an hour. Luckily, I was pointed at the toilet when this happened and most of it made it in.

Immediately after throwing up it all faded. My Celtics stomach was gone. There was no conspiracy. It had never been about basketball at all. It was just a fever and a bug moving through my system.

Vomit Free Since 0 Days. 

Arch.

One of the things that has always bothered me about the various Star Trek series’ is that when characters run a program in the holodeck that requires a certain costume they physically put on those costumes in their rooms and then walk with them on to the holodeck. Why? Why replicate physical material and wear it instead of just letting the holodeck overlay a costume onto your body? IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.