centre of the universe - the dreaming: GAK

03/06/2003: "GAK" Marathon day today. No time. Want to cuddle with Captain Proton. Will write more later. Thanks for the comments, all.

LATER

Hokay. I started the day with a morning show on CJTR; usually Friday's my gig, but they needed a Thursday, so I filled in. Up at five. Then to work at nine, where I got unGODLY amounts of work done. Really. Then home to cuddle with the sprog, had a wee nap on the couch, and I'm back to tell some more of my Christmas Vacation of Doom...now...let's see...where did we leave off?

Ah yes. The barfing.

So we're travelling to Saskatoon, stopping every half hour so I can hurl. Gram thinks I've contracted Ebola, Mum thinks I'm drunk, and Dad by this time must be wondering how he got into this mess in the first place. We thought a vacation to Florida would be *nice*.

We manage to get to the airport on time, check our luggage, board the plane, all without incident. But I'm still not feeling good. I check to see if there's a barf bag handy. There is. For some inexplicable reason, we thought it a good idea for me to sit in between mum and Dad. The stewardess...uh...airline attendant persun...does her rounds, asks how everyone is. I tell her, "I'm not feeling well; I think I have the flu". Mum says, "she's been drinking." Dad turns to me and asks if I've been drinking. If I had been feeling better I would have screamed. As it was, I closed my eyes, leaned my head back, and prayed for some kind of nerve gas to fill the air plane.

The airline attendant persun, I noticed before shutting out My Family, was hovering over me, trying to peer into my eyes. "Oh honey," she says (I hate it when people you don't know call you 'honey'), "do you get motion sick?"

"No, I think it's some kind of flu," I tell her, trying not to open my eyes.

"I'll get you some gravol. They're good for motion sickness."

"Thank you, but it's not motion sickness," I reply, opening my eyes a smidge, but she's gone. She returns a few minutes later with some little pink pills in a cup. For all I knew, she had Hunter S. Thompson in the cargo bay shelling out God Knows What. I should have held out for the ether.

"Here you go, honey. Swallow these, and have some water."

I pop the pills, pass out from sheer physical exhaustion, and miss the entire takeoff. Did I mention my mother hates airplanes? My mother watched "Airport 77" or whatever it was and ever since then was horribly terrified of air travel. There was never enough booze on the flight to get her to relax. Stumble and slur, yes. Relax, no. So my mother's on one side of me, clutching the armrests to keep herself out of purgatory, my father's on the other side probably trying to sleep, and I'm in the middle feeling that weird flippy stomach thing again. I close my eyes and try not to think about it.

That never works. I calmly reach out to the seat pocket, grab a barf bag ("air sickness repository") and hold it surreptitiously on my lap. "Get it over with," I think to myself. I open my eyes, look down, and see a tray of hardtack and swill with some could-be-jello, could-be-vitreous-humours on the fold-down tray in front of me. Yep. That did it.

Like a well-choreographed Up With People production, my father and mother both lean forward to eat whatever roadkill (probably venison) the airline was serving that day, at the same time as I lean forward to reposit my air sickness.

Did I mention I'm a silent barfer? It's a gift. I can win a belching contest with little more than a glass of water and willpower, but when it comes to barfing, I can sneak it into a shoe and nobody knows.

We all three of us recline once again in our seats, I fold the bag up and seal it, placing it on the tray. My parents keep eating, and I'm starting to feel better. My father glances over between bites and points at the bag with his fork. "What's that?" he asks.

I stare at him. "What do you think it is?"

"Don't be a smartass, what is that?"
"..."
"What, is that part of your meal?"
"uh, in a manner of speaking, yeah." I figure he just can't see the words, "Air Sickness Repository" printed on the side. Maybe he's looking at the French side.
"Well what the hell is it?"
"FOR CHRISSAKE, SHE JUST THREW UP IN IT", my mother announces in that 'had a few too many on the plane' voice. People from rows A - R all bend their heads around to see.
"Oh," my father says, and goes back to eating.

I decide to try the vitreous humours. They were spongy, but relatively taste-free. It's the first thing I've had to eat in at least eight hours. I have a cup of tea, thankfully handing the rest of my meal to my father as he asks, "you gonna finish that?"

Eventually the airline attendant persun whisks the repository away to...well...the great Air Sickness Repository in the sky, I suppose, and the rest of our flight proceeds without a hitch. Gastrointestinal or otherwise. My father not only pulls the barf bags out of his seat, but he reaches across me, takes the ones out of mum's seat pocket, and asks the stewardess for more. She shoots me an overdone look of sympathy and coos, "Still not feeling well, honey?"
"No, I feel fine now. My father is a crazy man, that's all."

Dad can never be content with just one thing. Especially if they're free. We left the plane in Toronto packing about a pound of Air Sickness Repositories he kindly tucked into MY carry-on luggage. Sweet of him, even though I was no longer feeling ill.

Our luggage didn't go on ahead of us; this could well be the strangest part of the entire tale. Our luggage went where it was supposed to go, when it was supposed to go there. It arrived in the right place, at the right time. Nothing was broken, mauled, pinched, pulled, spindled, or crushed. That was the best damn vacation our luggage ever had.

Getting from Pearson International Airport to Our Hotel was another matter. Post me some more comments, let me know you're reading, and I'll give you the next instalment tomorrie.

"Fat Chick and the Snaggletoothed Geek" "Still traveling"

1 Comment

carrier penguin , on Friday, 7th March:

So... sounds like you'd really had too much to drink. You should cut down. ;)

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