V is for Vomit

In deciding what I could possibly write about for the letter V -- violins? the victrola? vehemence? -- I thought of something which could very well have been part of my seven random things list. Vomit.

Fear not, this won't be a post full of gory details about the act of puking. I won't talk about the sweat that breaks out on your brow as you lurch fitfully down the hall towards the bathroom, each step rocking you with another clench of your esophagus as you seek to suppress your aching need to expel the contents of your stomach. I won't get into the moment when you realize that the act is not going to be denied any longer, when you throw your face into the gaping maw of the toilet bowl, hearing the rasps of your throat and the gurgling of bile echo all around your ears, amplified by the acoustics of porcelain and water. I won't even begin to discuss the way you finish off, hacking like a hairballed cat, expectorating, expectorating, and expectorating again, trying in vain to rid your mouth of the foul, sour residue of your experience.

I won't discuss any of that, because I don't vomit.

That's right.

I.

DON'T.

VOMIT.

It's been over twenty years since my last barfimonious experience, and I anticipate going considerably longer yet. I sometimes feel nauseous, I sometimes feel ill, but I do not vomit.

To shift gears just a little, my dear friend Keltie once sent me a short academic essay which analysed and compared the manners in which humans and cats vomit. It was one of the funniest things I've ever read, and I'm sure that those who were walking by my dorm room on that afternoon as I sat inside and laughed aloud more enthusiastically as can be called "cool" were wondering, but it was pure gold. Somewhere in the catacombs of my life, I have that essay packed away somewhere. I'll probably be 98 and in a home and some dear loved ones will come to visit and, through a haze of scant recognition, I'll hear them say, "Jerome, we found this in a box of stuff we're selling on eBay. We thought you'd like to read it." They'll hand me two typewritten pages, stapled together, and I'll read it quietly to myself and, through my own drool, I'll start to laugh my raspy old guy laugh, then it'll grow and grow until my frail frame aches and quakes uncontrollably in my metal-frame bed. Somewhere a little beeping alarm will start to sound, and my room will be set upon by young, patient nursemaids who will try to settle me down, strapping my arms and legs to the frame for my own safety, but it'll be too late and, as tears of joy, memory, and laughter stream from my eyes, I'll bellow my last laugh with more strength than I will have mustered in years, my chest will arch up towards the ceiling, and I'll expire before their eyes, a toothless grin upon my face and Keltie's writing clenched in my hard, cold fist.

Thanks a lot, Keltie. You're going to be the end of me.