Public Humiliation: Drawer Soiling VS Vomiting

"I have some...concerns," I inform Eddy as I put my coat on.

"Oh...kay...What might these concerns be?"

My activities for the past hour have included crapping my guts out, walking back to my desk, and then running back to the restroom under the influence of what feels like a red-hot poker pressing down on my colon. I don't say this exactly, but lay out what I feel our options might be for geting back to my car, which is parked across the river, driving Eddy to his house and then getting to my own.

"Well, you could go get my car yourself and come back here and pick me up. We could call a cab. Or we could just try walking to the bus stop and see what happens." I fuss around with my sleeve, disturbed to find the lining pushing out past the cuff.

"I suppose I could go get your car. Or we could call a cab."

I have been thinking about the possibility of just riding the bus, and have put a stash of tissue in a plastic bag and tucked it in my satchel. You never know when a ziplock full of toilet paper could save your ass, literally.

The other options seem less likely to produce a scenario where I would have to bolt into the bushes, drop trou, and humiliate myself in front of God and everyone than taking an admittedly short but tortured bus ride over the bridge. I've had a rumbly in my tumbly before on public transportation, and while I've never actually had to pull any emergency manuever, I have run through enough scenarios in my mind (hundreds for sure, more likely thousands-chronic stomach issues can push large critical buttons in the imagination, to be sure) to know that I'd have virtually no problem jumping off a bus and wrestling out of my pants to drop a load on the sidewalk. Considering the alternatives, it's the most pleasant.

Now, on the other hand, the thought of throwing up in front of people in the same forced social situation mortifies me beyond rationality. I mean, I am so anti-vomit that I will lie still for hours on end when I'm sick, feeling like a dog, toughing it out when I know I'd feel better if I just let myself puke. I haven't officially thrown up in over 20 years. I've gagged, dry heaved, and belched stomach acid into the back of my mouth, but never produced a stinking pile of totally identifiable foodstuffs through my mouth.

I try to relate this to Eddy on our way to the bus stop (I've decided to just roll with it), this I-don't-know-if-preference-is-the-right-word preference, and he strongly disagrees with me.

"But vomiting is so much more intimate," I protest. "Your whole body gets wracked, vile stuff is coming out of your mouth, people can tell what you've eaten and if you've chewed it properly. I don't want anyone hanging over my shoulder exclaiming 'Wow, is that a whole mushroom?' You can't tell that sort of thing from excrement." I think for a minute. "Unless you've had corn."

He does concede that if you vomit hard enough, it can and does come out your nose, which is really bad, and there's a taste that doesn't easily go away, but he still sticks to his opinion.

I chalk this up to a difference in life experience at the mercy of an easily irritated bowel and by the time we make it to the other side of the river, I am no longer feeling the familiar yet in no way welcome clenching and twisting of my gut.

Eddy will have to wait until next time to hold my bag and pretend not to know me while I defile the side of a building.