Day 47. Vomit.

I was in 7th grade and we were living in England. Yeah, the place that spelled trouble. Sometimes my sister Anne and I would hang out at the NCO club on base. They had good pizza and great video games. Maybe we went there for the music, too. As you can probably tell by now, my memory gets fuzzy on some of these stories. Anyway. We liked it there. It felt homey and the cooks used to make us laugh.

One day Anne, "Bullet" and I trekked into a nearby field to down some Mad Dog 20/20. (His nickname was Bullet because he had a shaved head in the shape of a bullet. Hey, we didn't come up with it.) I think we also had a bottle of 151. All I know is there was liquid. A lot of it. And I had no problem guzzling it down, trying to act all pro and shit.

A little while later, we all stumbled out, swerving and unsteady on our feet. I was probably a hideous shade of green. Or several. As Anne and I passed the front of the NCO club, we could see our chef friends through the massive window. Then, suddenly, I hurled. Big time. Right in front of everyone. I drank like a pro but held it down like anything but. 

Turns out, the next day my dad is walking with Anne past the front of the NCO club. 

With a quick sidestep he says, "Ew! Someone had too much fun last night!"

Um. Little did he know it was his youngest daughter, hammered from a drinking fest in the middle of a field of weeds and chiggers.

Another good ralphing story happened to me and my sister. We were living in the creepy mansion in Emsworth, PA. One of the prerequisites to us getting a cat is that we had to take care of it. Litter. Accidents. Water. Throw up. My parents weren't going to have any of it, which was fine with us. We tried to walk the damn thing outside once and it backed right out of its leash and took off into the woods. Jesus, a dog may have been easier than that cat.

His name was Wimpy. Because he was a wimp. He was gray and white, pretty cute. Pretty shy. One day my dad came downstairs and said, "hey, the cat threw up on your bed, Anne. Better go clean it up."

I've never seen someone's face go white faster. I was kind of excited about it, but she was horrified so I had to act horrified, too. We crept up the stairs together, like the puke was going to hurl itself off her bed, out the bedroom door and onto our faces. Anne was so worked up she was crying. More like sobbing. Especially when she got a look at the barf.

"I'm not touching that!" She screamed. (Even decades later she can barely touch raw meat).

"Then you're going to have to sleep on it!" said my dad. "We told you girls that cat is your responsibility."

"I'll clean it up if you give me a clothespin for my nose." I offered.

Anne sobbed in the background.

"I want gloves, too. And a plastic bag." Making demands is easy when you're the one who's doing the dirty work.

I got outfitted and pumped myself up to grab the barf off the bed. I sneaked up on it, got my face close to it, reached out and tried to pick some up. And you know what happened? It came up in one solid piece.

"What the hell!!" I shouted, as I flung the vomit across the room. Anne screamed as we watched it land on the rug, still in the same shape as pre-fling.

We sneaked up on it again.

"He must have barfed a long time ago, dad. It's all dried up and in a big, solid chunk." I explained. Anne was still beside herself in tears.

I tried picking it up again and then I knew something was up.

"Dad!! This barf isn't even real! It's plastic!"

Then all hell broke loose. My dad fell into a fit of laughter, Anne cried harder and I just got pissed. Probably because Anne was so upset. I seriously thought she was going to puke herself. She may have dry heaved a few times both during and after 'the procedure.' Those were the kinds of things my dad really got a kick out of. Teasing. Scaring. Tickling. It was all in good fun, at least until the day he almost drove the whole family off a cliff.