Parting The Seas

Since the topic has been vomit recently, I thought I would retell another adventure I had.

At one time, I was living in Memphis and dating a girl in Louisville. I was pretty enamored with her and was very eager to impress. She decided to visit me one weekend and I went overboard with the preparations in my usual manner. I called my sister, who married an Italian from New York, and got the Bonnono family spaghetti recipe. It was a pretty serious concoction with three different kinds of meat and then fried meatballs along with it. I spent all day cooking it and was very pleased with the result.

Around five that afternoon, just about the time I was expecting my company, she calls and gives me some lame excuse about snow flurries and how her mom doesn't want her to drive. Forget the fact that she was out on her own and had recently bought a four wheel drive Jeep, I knew it was a lame excuse because the weather channel made no mention of snow. I found out later that I was just something (or someone) to do unless a better offer came along.

Refusing to wallow in my misery, I called four of my buddies and told them I had an Italian feast ready to eat. Naturally, they swarmed my house. One of them brought one of those huge bottles of cheap wine and we all began to eat and drink like it was our last meal. I certainly drank more than my fair share, trying to numb the heartbreak I was feeling.

Once we were finished with dinner, somebody suggested a movie. I don't even remember what we went to see, but I recall the theater being full. Since I didn't feel like I had punished myself enough, I insisted that we stop by the liquor store and buy some bourbon or rum or some other bottle of devil's urine to sneak into the theater. I got my big cup of coke and whatever and downed it completely, barely pausing to breathe.

Shortly thereafter, my body started giving me the signals that I had imbibed too much. The dry mouth, the spinning room, etc.

A short pause to brag. I am a professional puker. That is not to say I puke a lot, but when I heave, I always empty my stomach into a container. None of this cleaning carpet or wiping off the couch for me. It is one of my few true talents.

So the chunky style, partially digested dinner began to make it's way back up my esophagus. I grabbed the big gulp cup that I had just emptied and made the most god awful noises filling it up. The poor bastards in the rows in front of me were not aware of my professional standing in the North American Society of Professional Pukers (N.A.S.P.P.). I don't remember much from that night, but I remember thinking that this must have been how Moses felt parting the Red Sea. The four or five rows in front of me must have experienced a mass panic. Men were climbing over girlfriends, children were being trampled, and I swear I heard a cat make a sound like it had caught it's tail in a blender. The entire theater had spread out and began to look back for the culprit and the victims that he had hosed with vomitus.

I sat there holding my cup full of chum and eventually figured out that they were looking for me, so I began to look over my shoulder for the offender. Ushers came down the isle, the movie was completely disrupted, and the only people that knew I had done it were my friends. They were laughing so hard that the manager soon came down and began to ask if anybody needed help. They all began to point at me (with friends like that), but in the darkness it just looked like I had a full soda. All of the employees began to shine their little flashlights between the seats looking for the disaster that surely must be waiting for them. Eventually, finding nothing out of the ordinary, they left and everyone's attention returned to the movie.

I feel sorry for the poor son of a bitch that found that cup of vomit.



I wake up every day and go to bed every night knowing I'm the luckiest guy on the fucking planet.
-Hugh Hefner