Upchucking While Heading Downtown

For years now I have lived in fear of one thing. Well one thing of many...but this thing actually happened to me Sunday night. There have been numerous times in the past that I've gotten on the subway, into a car, onto a bus, hungover and nauseous. Somehow, I've always managed to hold back the urge to purge. I'm not sure how, self control? Strong will? It was really just the fear of the humiliation that goes along with public vomiting. I don't get embarassed easily, if at all, but the thought of being on a packed train and SPLAT! I instantly make everyone else's lives more miserable because I was the drunk chick who couldn't hold last night's liqour makes me shudder.

Sunday night I was at a friend's place on the Upper West Side. I hadn't been feeling good all night, sure enough, I end up kneeling in front of her toilet. And this was in no way alcohol induced. Which is surprising, I know. After that I felt better. I drank a lot of water and decided to leave. I need to get to 14th St. from 86th. I made it to 59th street before running out of the subway car and throwing up into the nearest garbage can. Thank goodness I'm so tall that I didn't have to touch the can, just leaned over, and held my hair back. Everyone must have thought I was some drunk chick from Jersey (okay, that's partially true) or a junkie in need of a fix. Nope. Just food poisoning. I walked down from 59th to 42nd, thinking my stomach would calm down and I could get on the train again. After waiting for 10 minutes in the 42nd St. station I broke out into a cold sweat and decided it wouldn't be smart to get onto the train whenever it decided to come. So I walked to 33rd, hoping the fresh air would help. Even with my disheveled hair, smeared lipstick, and sickly complexion I still managed to get hit on. I guess I reaked of junkie hooker. Understandable. I kept thinking, "Watch this be the night I get attacked and I'll be too sick to fight back. Great." I didn't get attacked, but I made the mistake of buying a bottle of water and drinking that, because once in a cab on 33rd I only made it down to the West Village before the driver had to pull over for me to stick my head out the door again. I said to him, "I ate something that really messed me up." He probably thought, "Yeah, drugs." It was truly one of the worst nights I've had so far in my life. At least no one had to clean up after me, because then I would have felt truly horrible.

This happens every time I tell my friends, "Gee, I haven't thrown up in awhile." Every time I say that I always end up vomiting that night or sometime in the very near future. I was telling people that Saturday night. Go figure. Thanks to the food poisoning, which is the only probable diagnosis I can give myself next to cancer/death, I lost two days of my life being couch-ridden. It's amazing how something that starts in your stomach manages to mess up your entire body. I felt like an old woman in a hospital bed over all the moaning and crying I was doing because my back hurt so much. I was in so much pain I kept thinking, "I need a boyfriend so he can rub my back for me." Yeah, it was that excruciating. And I hate massages. Then I realized Advil works just as well. So I hope no one out there ever has to experience puking in public. The actual act is bad enough, and trying not to touch anything doesn't help. Eck. I also never realized how far Brooklyn is from the West Side when you don't think you can handle being underground for more than 7 minutes without an escape.