Vomit and why I like it OR How I spent my summer vacation by Genuine M. Draft

Let's start with the fact that I'm a custodian and I spend my time cleaning up after other people; people who don't understand the use of trashcans, reading bright yellow closed signs, or aiming. It gets old at times, putting up with these people. And some days there aren't any rooms to set up and I'm faced with the prospect of going and dusting something, anything, just to fill the time. And that's where the miracle of the vomit comes in.

For reasons not entirely understood I don't have a dislike for vomit. It's not just that I don't mind it either - it's that I love going and cleaning it up. And it happens without fail that if it's slow at work, someone somewhere it the building will decide to retch without making it to a receptacle. And we get a call at the supply desk.

It used to be that a general call would go out over our radios. "802, someone threw up in the women's restroom on the third floor by the elevator, is there anyone available to clean that up?" or "802, we just got a call from the convention in the ballroom and they said there's vomit in one of the booths. Could one of you find where that is exactly?" and I'd be thinking "memememememe, oooh, me! Pick me!" and answer the call as quickly as possible, hoping to be the first one to get a crack at it. What happens now though, is that they know to just call me first.

"802 Genuine?"

"Go ahead."

"Could you please come down to 1086?"

"Absolutely. I'll be right there."

Apparently no one else is leaping at the chance to clean it up. So I get gloves and bio hazard bags and go in search of the vomit. I guess I like it because it's something different. Different from the normal sets and bathrooms we do, and different every time, because just like a snowflake, no pile of puke is ever the same. Each incident is unique and presents its own set of challenges.

One thing I've learned - vomit is only fun to clean up for the first half hour or so. After that it's incredibly unpleasant. I had a case at the beginning of the summer where someone had thrown up in a small back room of BYUSA. The room was narrow, cluttered, not well ventilated, and as for the vomit, there was a lot of it. I assessed the situation as best I could and set to work, but it was rather difficult. The main problem was that this girl had upchucked on the piano she'd been sitting at. All I could think of was all the lectures I've been given as a custodian to be careful with the pianos, don't scratch the pianos, make sure you keep covers on the pianos, and here somebody had gone and vomited all over one. It was between the keys even.

Another tricky thing was that the room was carpeted. I can't just mop that up and call it good like I can do when I'm working with tile. I had to get a machine with a hose that sprays chemicals and also sucks up the puke, and it's hard because you have to get right down into the mess to clean it properly and try to do it without actually kneeling in anything unpleasant. I was in there for an hour and a half, and what boggles my mind is that during this whole procedure there were people in this tiny room trying to hold a meeting over the noise of my vomit slurping machine. It reeked in there, the way only bodily fluids can, and I was left to wonder why on earth they couldn't have finished up what they had to talk about in another room. I chalked it up to insanity.

I started a post back in June about vomit, and I titled it Not For [L'afro], because I know how much of a vomiphobe she is. The fact is, I became violently ill after going out to eat and I threw up 25 times. That was probably the least pleasant experience of my life. Up until then I'd been on good terms with Ralph - we understood each other quite clearly - you're sick, so I'm going to come up, pay you a call, and then you'll feel better. And I believed him after the first time I threw up, because it does make you feel better, but the following 24 times I cursed his name. What more could he possibly have to bring up? What more could I possibly have in me?! I was empty I tell you, empty!

The ironic thing was that I'd been having a discussion at work the last couple of days about vomit. I asked people if they had anything they threw up into as a child, aside from the toilet. I'm talking about when you've already been pronounced sick and you're sleeping on the couch in the living room. What do your parents put next to you in case you have to hurl and can't make it to the bathroom? Most families have a set thing they use - a specific bowl or a pot. There's a wide range of things. Someone told me they had a towel laid next to them on the floor, another person I know has a designated barf bucket they keep in the garage. Our family uses a brown paper grocery bag.

It seems like the only logical choice to me, but that's because it's what I grew up with. I mean, it's disposable. None of this "you yammied in this skillet yesterday, but today we're making omelets in it" business. I think that's disgusting. No. We used a grocery bag, its edges folded over. I asked my dad once why he did that, why he folded down the edges and he said something about it being easier to grip. I can't quite remember now. But I do know that when I was sick this last time I got out a brown paper sack and the first thing I did was to turn the edges down. (My dad could do it consistently without tearing the bag at all. I am not as gifted.) From what I've seen it helps the bag keep its form. It stays open this way, so there are no worries about missing the mouth of the bag when you've got to use it in the dark. I also like the bag, because it serves as a trash can. By the end of my stay on the sofa I had thrown used tissues in there, as well as some watermelon rind.

People do ask about leaking. Doesn't a brown paper sack leak? I assured them I had no memories of it ever leaking. Maybe this was because by the time you're placed on the sofa with the bag next to you, your preliminary puking has already been completed, and so the bag doesn't suffer much from use. It's merely there as a back up. And, I always had my mom there to switch out my bag if it needed switching. This last time the follow up vomit was not at all mild. It was plentiful. And there was no one to switch my bag because M-Lite had gone out of town, so my bag leaked and I had to make a dash with it to the front porch. I knew I should have double bagged. The second time I did the sensible thing and lined my sack with a plastic garbage can liner. But it was still a paper sack at its core, and I stand by my decision to use grocery bags.

There are other times besides when you're sick that you really need to hurl. There's a small amusement park near us at home called Oaks Park, and we went there at least once or twice every summer, for school or church trips or just as a family. Without fail, I would throw up every time I went. It's the spinny rides that do it to me, and in my head I have a list of rides I know I shouldn't let myself go on - Teacups, tilt-a-whirl, the round-up, the Matterhorn, the spider, the squirrel cages - nope, not a one of them. And a list of rides I can go on - The haunted mine and Big Pink (the giant slide). The Ferris wheel is iffy. It doesn't make me sick in and of itself, but I would go on it after I'd gone on a fast ride to give my stomach a break and I'd end up puking while riding it. I hit a guy that was beneath me on the Ferris wheel once, and I was so glad to get off before him.

I know this about myself, that if I go, I'm going to throw up while I'm there, so I would bring a plastic bread bag with me. It'd be there in my pocket, and when (not if) I needed to throw up, I'd pull it out, do my thing, tie it off, and throw it away when I got off the ride. This was standard amusement park attending procedure for me. Except the last time I was feeling sick on one of their rinky-dink rides and I pulled out a bag to puke into it didn't quite work. I puked into my bread bag, proud that I had averted disaster, until I noticed that my lap felt awfully warm. Come to find out the bag had a hole in it, so it had ended up all over me anyway, and I was left holding the bag. When we met up at the van to go home my mom asked if everyone had had a good time. H2 said she was mad because she'd wanted to go on the Matterhorn, but some idiot had thrown up on it and they'd shut it down. All I could say was, "Oh, sorry. That was me."

And there are dozens of more stories -the vomit in our basement that's been there for at least ten years, the time H got sick at school and laid out in the hallway by the nurse's room writhing in agony as people passed by, all the times I threw up on the school bus in elementary school and had to watch it slosh up and down the aisle when we went up hills, and I've got a great one from when I worked at the preschool. But there's only so much time and space I'm willing to devote to this subject. Perhaps one day I'll publish a series of vomit vignettes. Until then, this is Genuine Draft saying, "Come back next time, and feel free to vomit at my place of work."