The Top 5 Times I’ve Puked

1. First Date Ever, Age 15

When I was 15 years old, I went on my first date ever, with a boy who could drive. He went to the public high school, while I went to private school. He liked punk music. He was cool. I was not. We went to the beach and ate pizza on the boardwalk and then walked along the sand. I was incredibly nervous. We sat on the beach next to the lifeguard stand and looked at the water. He kissed me. I immediately stood up and ran behind the white booth and puked.

I told him the pizza must have made me sick. He drove me home with the window down in case I threw up again. By the gate in front of my neighborhood, when we came to stand still so he could input the entrance code, I opened the door and puked again — chunks and waves of pizza guts — out of the car and onto the street.

He dropped me off at home. Thus, ending my first date ever. A fitting beginning to my love life if there ever was one.

2. Red Wine Jackson Pollack

In college, my roommate Kim and I would purchase jugs of a red wine/sangria called Carlo Rossi to split between us. On one such night, I consumed too much Carlo and went to a party, blacked out and then came home to my upstairs bathroom and puked red wine into my hands. (The details of this are unclear as I was alone.) I then, in a drunk state, and in an effort to clean my hands, wiped them on the white wall of our bathroom.

Yep. I smeared red wine puke all over the white walls. Then, I fell asleep in my bed in my clothes. In the morning, I woke to Kim screaming that someone had been murdered in our bathroom. When I went to look, I was MORTIFIED. Hand prints, streaks, chunks in a beautiful and horrifying art/human upchuck display. “Nice work, drunk Jackson Pollack,” Kim said, handing me a sponge and a bucket. “Clean that up.”

3. Into A Boot

This is also a blackout story, but I swear I’ve only done so maybe three times in my life. It’s not quite a puke story, but it’s close. This was also in college. I drank a lot at a party and my boyfriend at the time brought me home and tried to put me into bed. I didn’t want to go. I stood up, meandering about my bedroom. “Gaby,” he said. “Just get into bed and pass out.”

“No,” I said, firmly. “I have to do something. I have to do something very important.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, steering me toward my pillows. “You’re drunk.”

“Nooooo,” I fought him. By the door was my pair of LL Bean rain boots. I picked one up. Studied it. And then reared back and hocked a massive, disgusting loogey into it as my boyfriend watched.

“Did you just…” he said. I put the boot down.

“There you go,” I said, plopping down on my bed. “All done.” Then, I passed out.

My boyfriend washed the boot out in the shower, but not before showing my roommate what I’d done and both of them laughing hysterically. For the next two years, anyone who blacked out was declared to be “boot spittin’ drunk,” in my honor.

4. A Boy’s Car

Unlike in my first story, this time I didn’t get the door open and puked all over my own legs and the floor of this boy’s car. Right before we pulled into his driveway. If I could have waited another 15 seconds, I would have been in the clear. That was, unfortunately, not what the fates had planned.

5. All Over A Nurse

When I was about eight years old, I got really, really sick and spent some time in the hospital. I missed a bunch of third grade and scared the bejesus out of my parents. (It’s a bummer so I don’t want to go into it.)

The first time I started feeling badly though, my parents brought me into the ER. My dad was carrying me because I was so weak so I was against his chest as he talked to the person at the front desk. He told her he thought something was really wrong with me and that I needed to be seen immediately. The nurse was nonplussed and said he would need to fill out paperwork and wait. My dad was totally freaked and insisted I needed to be seen right now because he thought I was going to die. The nurse scoffed that I didn’t look sick and that he needed to sit down.

As soon as she said it, I opened my eyes, leaned toward her and vomited ALL OVER HER FACE. It got on her clothes, her desk, her hair, her arms. It was yellow and it was EVERYWHERE.

There was a beat.

“You can go right in,” she said.

My dad smirked, “Oh, thanks.”