WARNING: The following message contains graphic, gross, and downright yucky references to gagging and vomit. If you have a weak stomach I suggest you proceed with caution. I can guarantee some laughter or at least a crack of a smile at the content but beware you may experience some light to severe gag reflexes. (this means you Jessica)
Ok well I am once again inspired by my friend Jessica in my post today. She posted this sweet message about reuniting with a friend and gave a quick sidenote about gagging and there I go with my own post on that topic. I'm not sure if she is going to think I got what she wanted me to out of her story but oh well.
Gagging. For a long time if was my own specialty. I'm absolutely serious. Ask anyone who knew me in high school, especially my close friends and they will tell you I was famous for it. They would demand it on the spot and respond with glee when I produced a spectacular gag. Many things made me gag, smells, sounds, sights, even just thinking about these things. Specific things that would set me off were the sound of a boy hawking a loogie (not quite sure on the spelling of those terms), the smell of cornnuts (still a wretched beast), the sight of anything resembling vomit or even the sound of that process and the smell of the product, actually vomit was the trifecta of my gag instinct.
So my sweet friends, in a effort to increase their joy, would try and incite my own special talent. They would create sounds, point out sights, or even, when they were extremely desperate, try to get me to sympathy gag with their own mock gag. So the fun and games continued on for years. Katie the extreme gagger. I could have listed it as a special talent, a hobby, my own extreme sport. I was the best around at the gag.
This extreme reaction to so many triggers created a fear deep within my heart that one day I would fail as a mother because when my sweet child suffered the horror of the vomit I would be rendered ineffective by the gag.
But there came a day, that one day in your life when you must face your worst fear. The day when you must stand face to face with your enemy and choose to flee or to fight, or in my case to gag or to not gag. I will set the stage for you. (Insert dramatic music here) I was with the high school youth group on a ski trip. We were staying at this amazing lodge that has the best meals after a long cold day of skiing. A tender comforting smell wafted from the kitchen where the cook had been slow roasting the main course all day. With great anticipation we approached the counter and were greeted by the largest piece of prime rib I have ever encountered. Now I would like to take a moment to let you know that I am a meat lover. Give me a good piece of steak medium with the pink/red on the inside and I am a happy carnivore. But there is something that causes a bit of hesitation when the entire piece of thin meat you are given is a bright pink. I therefore decided to pass on the prime rib and enjoyed the rest of the real.
Fast forward to that evening. I was rooming with two of my senior girls as well as three freshmen. I had jerry-rigged a bed on the floor of the main room so that I could sleep while the sweet freshmen talked into the wee hours of the night. So on this one night I was sleeping ever so deeply as one does after a long day of physical exertion and I awoke in an instant to a horrifying sound. Fear rushed through my body as the adrenaline pumped through my veins. I stumbled through the dark to find a situation that I was not prepared for. One of the sweet freshmen had gotten sick and made it to the door of the bathroom and . . . . well let's just say that the prime rib from that evening (and much much more) was now all over the floor of our small bathroom. This was it, a defining moment in time, what would Katie do? Without even a thought toward the sight, sounds, or smells I leapt into action and threw every towel in that bathroom on the floor and quickly eased the sick girl toward the toilet. She finished her business, we washed out her mouth and returned her to bed. Ahhhhh, mission completed. As it was the middle of the night and there was no magic button for room service emergencies I retreated to my pallet and tried to return to sleep with the knowledge that I had, at least in that crisis, conquered the gag and performed the proper caretaker duties.
Now this story would be wonderful if it ended there. I conquered my fear, rose to the occasion, etc. but as with everything it never ends where you think it will. So once again in my deep sleep I heard a suspicious sound. Only this time is was my name being called out in fear. I jumped up and raced with my catlike skills to the bathroom to find another girl in the throws of projectile vomiting. The evil beast had rose from the ashes of my last conquest to try and conquer me again. Through desperate breaths this girl told me that she had awoken to use the bathroom and seeing ours in such disarray gone down the hall to a public restroom. There she had started to feel sick and thought she could make it back to the room. Alas she was not so fortunate, nor was the carpet outside our room where she became sick. So here I am in crisis mode again in the bathroom attending to a sick girl and then I have to go into the hallway to clean up that little present.
So I did my duty, I reached a place beyond reflexes, beyond instinct, beyond the gag and I rose above that nagging desire to follow the suit of those sweet girls now with empty stomachs and I cleaned and covered and crawled back into bed. Suffice it to say I did not sleep well for the next few hours, I jumped at any sound, listened for that tell tale sign of the vomit and waited for the sun to rise. In the morning I surveyed the damage. Two girls down with stomach problems, a bathroom which had a nice new pinkish carpet of towels and red prime rib and a hallway with a white roadblock in the middle marking the early morning episode.
Not that it really pertains to my point or story but I never like it when movies of books neglect to tell you what happened afterward so I will give you the cliff notes version of the ending. The girls were fine after a day of quarantine. The sickness may or may not have been from the prime rib as it reached out and touched a few others on the trip over the next few days. The lodge was very kind about the clean up of our disaster site.
So lessons learned from this adventure:
1. Just say no to Prime Rib - it got a bad rap with me and I don't think I can ever see it the same again
2. In a disaster the gag is helpless to the desire to rise above and take care of those around you
3. I really don't have a three but I was once told that you should always have three or more reasons for anything
So I laugh in the face of the gag, I thumb my nose at the gag, bring on the smells, the sights, the sounds, the gag has no power over me now. But there was that one time I drove by the Chinese restaurant and smelled the eggs for fried rice and had to pull over as nausea washed over my body and the gag choked in my throat. . . . . . . .
