Upchuck

Words are funny things. They continually evolve into synonyms that are substituted into our every day conversation, depending upon our mood. For example, I could say to you, “I really like that blouse you are wearing. It’s so pretty.” But, maybe some day, I wake up feeling especially creative and want to say, “I really like that blouse you are wearing. Groovy, man.”  It really changes how you may look at me for one, but I meant the same thing. Aren’t we having fun?

So, last night when I was getting sick, and wondering if it was from the pizza I ate or an actual stomach virus, I thought to myself, “I hope I don’t get sick.” That was not creative at all.  There are synonyms for “getting sick.”  I looked at an online dictionary and found some substitutes. For those of you who are quite literal, the following words are use to discribe of how one may eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth:

blow lunch

puke

blow groceries

Ralph

Yak

heave

hug the toilet

hurl

lose your lunch

retch

spew

throw up

vomit

spit up

be sick

toss one’s cookies

cough up

Those are all good I guess. The most important thing is to actually say one of those phrases on your way to the bathroom. Don’t just sit there. ( My children) My favorite word for getting sick is “upchuck.”  My mom used to use that phrase when she would turn around in the car and see a skinny green-faced girl with her hand out the window. “Vickie, are you going to upchuck?” They usually had a bucket in the backseat for their pukey daughter, but it wasn’t there this trip and the usual breathing in and out and my fingers getting frost-bit wasn’t working. (Which by the way, putting your fingers out of the window DOES  help. I asked a doctor. A real doctor.) My then husband used to tell me it was all in my head. “Uh, now it is in the backseat, Goober head.”

Upchuck….It reminds me of college.
So, I started thinking about all of the times I have thrown up. I have a lot of throw up stories. Like the time I was in a crowded bar (like sardine crowded) and a girl asked me if there was something in the back of her hair. I looked. And I vomited right on the back of her blouse.  She had chunky vomit all in the back of her long brown hair. It was decorated with beef. Well, that’s what it looked like to me, and I promptly vomited to add insult to injury. So, my answer to her was quite literal.  “Yesssss.”  And then I ran. Which is hard to do when you are a sardine. I felt horrible, but I figured she had to leave anyways because, well, she had beef in her hair.

I had a weak stomach, and other times I was a rock. A rock. I could be the drunk friend who would hold your long hair back and talk to you while you threw up in the toilet after a night of drinking swamp water. I’d even describe what was coming up. “Did you have pizza tonight, Paula?” Stuff like that. I could do that after drinking swamp water. But usually, if I would see someone vomit, I would have to join the party and upchuck too.

Ok, I am sure you are sitting there, reading this post with an expression that cannot be mimicked, right? Well, I’m almost done. Two years ago, our fourth graders put on a Christmas show and we were practicing in my room. A girl threw up. Oh, she just didn’t throw up. It was jet propulsion all over the place. Chunks of ……lunch, which I do believe beef was involved. The janitor was called and it took him awhile to come into the room because he didn’t know what a mop was. By the time he got there, two kids had run to the bathroom to get sick. The bathroom was across the hall and you could hear them throwing up. Which made two more run to the bathroom. I was proud of myself. I breathed through my mouth and trudged on to save the lives of my little upchucking students. The smell was unbearable.

The janitor came in and started slurping the vomit all around with his mop. The kids that had come back in from getting sick, ran right back to the bathroom to throw up again. I then had them sit out in the hall. Some kept thinking about it and running back to the bathroom. It was vomit chaos. It took more than an hour to get rid of the smell. I was sooo proud of myself for keeping my lunch down. Until a student  spoke up.

“Ms. Mendenhall, you have something on your shoe.”

It was a piece of the flying beef, just sitting there, smiling at me, like it was saying, “You know you want to throw up.”

OR

It was a piece of the flying beef, just sitting there, smiling at me, like it was saying, “You know you want to upchuck.”

Groovy.