It’s not just the life or death decisions that make life so damned difficult. Sometimes it’s the seemingly trivial decisions that my clients struggle with the most. Like whether or not to vomit in a given situation. This probably seems like the simplest choice in the world, but it isn’t always. Sure, there are times when you’ll chug three Pabst Blue Ribbons out of a funnel in 2.3 seconds and the decision to projective vomit on your friend Larry or not will be made for you. But most of the time, you can hold off a good long time if need be. Nearly indefinitely. As with farts, sometimes you’re definitely going to puke, but the decisions you make in terms of where and how loudly and so on will have a dramatically positive or negative effect on the situation’s overall outcome.
Here are some tips:
Develop a good technique
Puking is a strenuous activity and can leave you injured or even dead. Just ask Bon Scott, former singer for AC/DC, whose technique was to drink three handles of tequila, lay on his back, slip into a deep , deep sleep, and then puke. That was the wrong approach.
Proper puking starts with an appropriate stance. Stand (or kneel) with your base roughly shoulder width apart. Pitch forward slightly, resting your hands gently on the back of the toilet or the wall behind it. Or the side of the house or the tree or whatever you can rest your body against while it concentrates on the retching itself. Tip your head back at least far enough to ensure that your nose is higher than your mouth on the horizontal axis. Then barf. Spit for a little while and catch your breath. Maybe barf again. Keep spitting until the slobber stops coming. Think about barfing. Try barfing one more time just to ensure that you’re properly barfed out. Then go to bed.
Perform these steps correctly and hurling can be merely an inconvenient unpleasantry. Get sloppy in your technique, on the other hand, and you’re likely to develop a stiff neck or throw your back out. You might tear a stomach muscle or worse. You may end up snarfing through your nose and mouth simultaneously, which really fucking stings.
Don’t suffer all day and night for something a simple puke would resolve.
Some nights you succumb to peer pressure or whatever, and you end up with a gut full of bourbon and gin. And tequila and three shots of Schnapps. And five heaping bowls of taco dip, eaten without utensils. And then a couple beers “to wash it all down.”
And then you wake up the next day wishing you were dead. Waves of crippling nausea overtake you every time you try to leave your bed (and by ‘bed,’ of course, we sometimes mean picnic table). In such circumstances, there are two possible remedies that can bring you around to feeling human again.
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Lay in bed all day. Try sipping on soup broth during your waking spells, if the thought itself doesn’t make you heave. Nibble on a banana or some bland crackers and drink water until you’re pissing clear as a mountain spring. Take a heaping dose of extra strength medicine and sleep late. Awaken prepared to Carpe the next Diem.
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Puke.
That’s it. Twenty seconds of misery and a flush. Done.
Consider brushing your teeth afterwards. Or eating a Double Whopper with Cheese. Either way, a fresh gut is often all you need to get back on your feet and salvage the day. Come to think of it—you already called in sick. Fuck it…let’s go mountain biking.
Don’t follow your first instinct and puke before you’ve evaluated whether a little suffering would be tolerable.
The ability to yak and run is an important skill, but one to be exercised judiciously. Not every sudden fit of nausea calls for a spontaneous ralph.
Puking can be an excellent way to kill your buzz. Depending upon where you are along the intoxication lifecycle, this can sometimes save your life. More commonly, though, it’s just really fucking annoying and means you’ll have to drink that $30 worth of shots all over again.
Sometimes puking is just really gross.
What the…UGH!!! Really, dude(tte)? You’re telling me you never got dog shit on your shoes before? Fuck! The kids play over there, you know. Thanks a lot. Now they have to dodge shit and puke.
A night-before puke is better than a morning-after puke.
Sometimes the critical difference between a productive Sunday and an insufferable day of neglected responsibilities is a carefully timed earl. If you pass out the night before feeling like a ten foot tall rock star surfer demigod, chances are you’ll wake up feeling like a two inch pile of dog shit. Once you’ve given a terrible hangover a full night to bake in, there’s only so much a morning after barf can do to bring you around, regardless of your technique. However, if you have the prophylactic sense to barf out all your undigested booze before you crawl into bed, while you’re still a golden god, you’ll typically sleep productively and wake up with the energy to start drinking again by afternoon kick off time.
Running for the toilet is bad.
Running for the toilet when a puke overcomes you is polite and tidy on an elementary school level, but it is bad practice as an adult. Dude(tte), you’re running through a dark house, for fuck’s sake! It’s three o’clock in the fucking morning and you’ve been drinking for eleven straight hours! How the fuck are you going to aim a puke into that knee-high, foot-wide goal? What the fuck–look out! Agh, goddammit!! You got it……fucking everywhere. God………damn. It’s all over the floofy toilet seat cover and the floor mat. And look—there’s some on the wallpaper there. And the air duct and behind the mirror and even a splash there on the ceiling. Fuck.
No. If you’re not a grade-schooler and you find yourself running for a place to puke, you better be pointed outdoors. Get the fuck out of the house, even if you have to jump through the bay window. Barfing in your buddy’s backyard is infinitely preferable to barfing in his upstairs hallway. Especially if his parents have to get up for work in the morning. You can always replace the glass and wash off his little brother’s Big Wheel with the hose in the morning.
Style points can be awarded.
Fuck it. If you’re going to puke regardless, you might as well do it in the most prickish neighbor’s mailbox. Right? Hell…barf in a Tupperware container, put it in the fridge with the Indian leftovers and keep your FlipCam handy. The ability to turn an unpleasant situation into a lifetime of funny stories is the mark of a creative thinker.
Household Use
Little known fact: vomit is an outstanding corrosive, which can make it useful for certain chores around your home. Strain off the big chunks and keep some in a spray bottle with your tools. You’ll thank me the next time you’re trying to clean a filthy set of car battery terminals. Or an escaped convict accosts you in your garage, bends you over the workbench and attempts to rape you an arm’s length way from your badass, skull-stoving titanium flashlight and rape prevention eye spray.
Better safe than sorry, after all.
