Machelle and the Technicolor Yawn

“I THINK I’M GOING TO PUKE,” Machelle mumbled sweetly in my ear. “I think I’m going to wake up and puke all over you.” She rubs her sleepy eyes and stretches, turning ever so slightly towards me.

“Do it and die.” I am now hugging the edge of the bed in horror. Praying please, for the love of all things good, do NOT let my little sister throw up on me. I’ll do anything – fess up to beating up Mitchel in third grade, stealing quarters out of mom’s purse for sodas, and willingly going down a closed, abandoned mine shaft where I climbed ladders, walked around the one foot wide ledge of a bottomless pit and then ran out of light and had to use the luminescent screen of a cell phone the rest of the way. Just please, no puke on me.

Eventually my choke hold of fear started wearing off, I stopped shivering and drifted to sleep in Sam and Marks trailer. I was uncomfortable enough as it is, still wearing knee high socks, jeans and a sweater underneath layer upon layer of blankets. If Machelle was going to lose it, I didn’t think she or I would be able to move fast enough to do anything about it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love camping, love being outdoors, and especially love the time warp you experience when you pull off onto that dirt road and switch off your phone. What I don’t love is when I forget to bring tennis shoes (good one, Aub!), it rains the whole time, and the campfire is only strong enough to permeate me with the smell of smoke. Add to that two big wet labradors and we have a beautiful mess.

The night was going well enough – we played Apples to Apples, told stories of vacations and roasted string cheese (does anyone else do that?) and made smores.

No. The problem began when Machelle subconsciously decided to sleep warn me of her vomitous nature. And then, out of the darkness when my eyes had finally closed and my brain had stopped functioning  – not that it functions already  – I hear what I was dreading. “Aubrey hurry get up!!” I fought through the fog in my head, not wanting to come awake but knowing it would be foolish not to get out of the way when warned. “I’m gonna puke, now MOVE!!”Panic ensues as she hurries to the door and fiddles with the latch, then runs into the bathroom and looks around in there, back to the door and finally she asks Sam, “Where can I throw up?!”

Sam, in her sleepy stupor gives the worst answer you can give someone with nausea. “Just throw up anywhere”. And throw up she did. The wet sound of fluids repeatedly hitting the bottom of the shower curdled my stomach, and I covered my mouth and ears to drown out the sound. Poor Shelly, I thought. Poor us, we’re all stuck in here now, with the smell (you know “the smell”) and nothing to clean it up with. Isn’t life wonderful?

We had hit a point where all five of us – Mark, Sam, their friend Mel, me and Machelle were all awake and gagging, longing for the taste of untainted air. It was that point that I decided I needed an escape option. No way could I go back to sleep in there, and it had nothing to do with vomit. No, I couldn’t sleep because of myself, and here is why. When I get uncomfortable, and I mean, really, really uncomfortable in a situation, it’s all I can do to keep from laughing. So I chuckled. I snorted. I whined and whimpered and bit my cheek but there was no helping any of that, especially when Machelle joined in and kept whispering words like “chunks” “so gross” “go in there” and by far the nastiest “It must’ve been the mushrooms I ate. I think there is one stuck in my nose right now. I can feel it”.

We had to go.

I drove the sixty miles home in the dark, and the clock on the dash read 4:02. Happy Memorial Day everyone! Hope yours was just as memorable as mine, but for happier, less gruesome reasons.