Dreadful Nonsense

I can count the number of times that I’ve thrown up in the last ten years on the fingers of one hand. I, lovely ladies and gentlemen, am not a puker. I do not vomit easily. There is not a great deal of up chuck in my life. Alcohol makes me twirl around and fall over, and gives me poorly head and sicky tummy the following day, but I’ve only ever thrown up twice due to alcohol. Twice in one lifetime. That’s quite a good score.
That’s why I found myself standing on the platform of St Pauls tube station with a look of mild surprise on my face. I had finally got around to leaving work, about 4 hours after I really should have done, because I do not vomit. I had decided to get on the tube despite slight reservations because I do not vomit. I had only leapt off the tube I had got on because it was too hot. Not because I was about to vomit. Because I do not vomit.

I threw up on the platform of the tube station. Five seconds later, and the train would have left, with me on it, and then there would have been vomit all over the lovely tourists on the central line.

I’ve always wondered about those ladies that you quite regularly see sitting up and down tube stations across this great city, particularly during the summer, being crouched around by tube station staff and passed cups of water. I need wonder no more.

So there I stood, vomit on my skirt and boots and still that look of mild surprise on my face, being closely followed by an urge to cry, and a slightly stronger urge to faint. The commuters all filed past me and ignored me completely, until one lady, on the tube that had pulled up behind the one I had leapt off, spotted me through the window and got off the train to come and help. She went and got a tube man, and then, having pressed a huge lump of tissues into my hand, got back on the next tube and went on her way. At that moment I felt deeply shamed for having adopted the same London-style attitude numerous times in the last six months when I saw ladies in a similarly distressed state.

Food poisoning is not fun. It is almost in fact the complete opposite. Not only do you get to vomit, but you get to vomit copiously, and over a period of hours rather than minutes. Eventually, your stomach doesn’t quite get the message that there’s nothing left to vomit, and you’re left doing that empty vomiting when you’re going through the motions of vomiting without any of the relief, and wishing to die right then and there.

Twenty four hours later, and all I’ve eaten is boiled 7up, which seems to be staying down quite nicely It’s supposed to be incredibly difficult to get food poisoning as a vegetarian, something I had smugly remarked to He Who Only… just the week before. And the worst thing is, He… had eaten exactly the same food as me the night before, and wasn’t in the least bit affected.

This entry was posted on 28 November 2005 at 10:50 am. 0 comments

Dreadful Nonsense

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