WARNING: This post goes well beyond TMI. And yet, not as far as I could have gone. Those of you who choose to continue reading can thank me later.

A couple of weeks ago, they had the annual awards thingie at work. As a new hire, I was pretty much required to go, so I decided, if I had to do Swank Banquet with Co-Workers, I was gonna do it right. Luckily, Mum and I had already planned to go to Pensacola to take Dad to the airport and shop for a bridesmaid dress*, so we decided to throw a second dress onto the shopping list. I already had my Fredelia** shoes, and, after several hours of dress shopping with my mother (ALWAYS a treat...), I finally found one I liked that fit me well. I even made my first non-foundation-or-nail-polish cosmetic purchases. For just one night, I was going to make the effort to pretend to be a normal 20-something, since that is easier than explaining the truth to people I have to work with on a daily basis. (I also very carefully showed up late enough that I only had to tell a couple of people that, no, I wasn't going to partake of the cocktail hour, thank you very much.)

For the dinner itself, we were given the choice of prime rib or grouper Parmesan. I happen to prefer fish to red meat, so I opted for the grouper. It was rather disappointingly over-cooked, but the sides were all delicious, and I ate slowly so as to avoid any unfortunate IBS issues. Still, halfway through the extraordinarily dull presentation, I started feeling oddly dizzy. I managed to hold it together, but I rode the whole way home with the windows down, despite the fact that it was 50 degrees and I was doing 70.

That was Saturday night.

Sunday was utterly uneventful. I don't even remember what happened, in fact; certainly nothing alarming.

Monday morning, I had the usual IBS trouble after eating my morning cereal, so I took some meds and went on about my business as usual. About two hours and 10 oz of Dr. Pepper into my workday, I felt _awful_. I figured it was just persistant IBS and too much soda, so I took some more meds and stopped drinking. Shortly after, I started hiccuping. For those of you who don't know, I've been occasionally getting awful, hours-long cases of hiccups since before I was born, and they inevitably degenerate into me grunting and moaning in frustration between *hic!*s, then collapsing in despair before they finally peter out. Once I collapsed this time, I realized I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore without being intensely nauseous.

One of my coworkers decided at this point to start making periodic cracks about how he was exhausted, too, and maybe we should both go home sick, winkwinknudgenudge***.

I soldiered on, analyzing data and _really_ wishing my boss would stop talking about how the program I was using was meant to "regurgitate" the input data - she had never described the process using this term before; perhaps this proves the existence of some twisted higher being orchestrating the panto that is my life (if it's you, Karen Eiffel, cut it out. Please and thank you.). By about 1:30, I knew I had to go home. I started saving things and closing out programs as quickly as I could, then got up to go tell my boss that I was going to have to leave for the day. About two steps away from my desk, though, I realized I instead needed to detour to the bathroom. Badly. I barely got "I'll be ba--" out before I had to clamp a hand over my mouth.

I was halfway to the restroom when the vomit came. But, arguably worse than me spraying the foyer, I had my mouth shut tight, so I had to walk the rest of the way internally chanting "Don't think about what's in your mouth. Don't think about what's in your mouth."****

Because this is the way my life works, I passed my branch chief as he was heading back toward our office area, and he gave me a big grin and a wave. Needless to say, I didn't return the gesture.

I was almost to the bathroom. ALMOST there. But, instead of pushing it open and depositing my refuse in the sink mere steps away (hopefully NOT on anyone unlucky enough to be standing there at the time), I slipped up and thought about what was in my mouth.

I decorated the bathroom door like it was Wendy Testaberger's face*****. And then, as I pushed the door open (which was already half-propelled by the force of the spew), I fired another volley at the floor before getting the third and final one in the sink.

Standing there trying to figure out how to even begin to clean it up, I heard footsteps outside, followed by an, "Oh my gosh..." Luckily, it was one of the women I have worked fairly extensively with, and she went and got our ever-capable office manager/wonderwoman, and the three of us, after discovering we have no mop, flooded the bathroom and swept the chunks toward the floor drain. They (the co-workers, not the chunks) were incredibly nice and helpful, and I will remain in their debt for years to come. BUT, what wasn't at all helpful were the comments like, "I've worked here for 37 years, and this is a first," or, "I'm a mom; this is just another day in paradise"/"Mine have outgrown this phase," or, when I was chastised for trying to scoop up chunks at what was apparently an inappropriate time and said "I feel like I should be doing *something*," "Trying chewing your food better."

What also didn't help, in so much as it lifted my mood a bit but only at the expense of my conscience, was hearing Co-Worker #4 (aka the co-worker behind the Austrian Deception, etc, etc) loudly announce to the office that the women's restroom was closed for cleaning because "[Co-Worker Who Found Me] peed on the floor." Or the fact that, when our office manager stuck her head out the door to ask for something out of the men's restroom, it was Co-Worker #1 (aka the other new hire, who delights in reminding me that he got there first...even if it was only a month and a day before me) who was standing there surveying the situation. I did get some small amount of satisfaction out of the fact that the co-worker who thought I just stayed up too late the night before and couldn't hack it gave me a sheepish look when he saw us cleaning up, though.

Finally, by about 2:15, we had the place cleaned enough that it could be used at least until the cleaning lady came in in the morning, and I was able to shut down and tell my supervisor (who somehow _missed the whole thing_) that I was heading home. I was feeling fine, no problem to drive home, I'd probably even be back to work the next morning. Except, just as I put the car in reverse and backed out into the road, I threw up a little in my mouth. Literally.

I couldn't exactly open the door and puke into the parking lot - particularly not when I was in danger of being rear-ended - so I grabbed a wadded up tissue out of my cup holder and wiped my tongue on it.

About three seconds later, I realized it was the same tissue I used that morning to scrape bird droppings off my roof.

Luckily I had a bottle of tea, and I gargled as long as I dared (again, while driving)...then realized I couldn't very well roll down the window and spit tea-with-added-guano into the middle of a busy street on an Air Force base. I grabbed the half-consumed Dr. Pepper and spat my third vile mouthful into it...and promptly dropped the bottle cap on the floor. Trying simultaneously to not hit anything, spill the soda-spittoon******, or get arrested, I fished around on the floorboard until I finally found it and screwed it back on without further incident.

As soon as I got home, I stripped down to my underwear in the laundry room, flashing back to crazytrini85 ("Marvin, you're naked!"), darting across the living room to my bathroom, and wishing I had a hazmat shower. Plenty of scrubbing later, I dried off, dressed, hung up my towel...and then made a brand new mess on my bathmat and had to get back into the shower for Round Two.

Needless to say, I didn't go to work on Tuesday. Instead, I slept for 18 hours, waking up maybe three times to drink a little water and eat a couple of saltines. When my boss called to check on me at about 1 o'clock, Co-Worker #4 was in her cubicle and passed along his well wishes before declaring that it had to have been the fish. It had, of course, briefly crossed my mind that it might have been the fish, but it had been a day and a half before I even started feeling nauseous; food poisoning just doesn't take that long.

BUT, when I got back to work on Wednesday, I discovered that almost every single person who ate the fish was out sick at least one of those three days. I wasn't the first to show symptoms, I was just the only one to do it so spectacularly and so publicly; there were people who didn't even show up on Monday, so the pattern didn't start to emerge until Tuesday, while I was fast asleep. (Incidentally, when I got back on Wednesday, Co-Worker Who Found Me asked if I had heard about how many people had "fallen." She meant "fallen ill," but my first thought was of dozens of people slipping and falling in my vomit water. And the guilt just keeps piling on.)

Aside from a comment made by the only person in the office who truly grates on my nerves that, "It's a good way to start a diet!" (isn't bulemia SEXY?!), everyone was wonderful about the whole thing, and it turned out to be a sort of bonding exercise in the end, but I still, in some small way, cemented myself as the baby of the office*******. What began as my first foray into Being a Proper Adult Who Goes to Formal Occasions for Work-Related Things ended up knocking me several rungs back down the Ladder to Proper Adulthood.

But not quite far enough that I've landed in the Grad Student Bin yet, unfortunately...

Epilogue

The following weekend, my family made another trip to Pensacola for a tour of the (haunted) Pensacola Lighthouse (which my parents once lived in) (Awesome.), and we finished up the night at an upscale seafood restaurant, where I ordered sushi. My father made a big deal about how I was going to get sick again. Apparently xenophobia paves over things like the fact that _the grouper was OVERcooked_. The Jinja Roll, however, was delicious.

* Any time you people want to stop asking me to be in your weddings would be great ;^P

** So called because I think they're just conventionally cute enough to not be completely dorky.

*** Uh...not _that_ kind of winkwinknudgenudge. Ick. Ickick. (In the telling of The Grouper Incident, I've just grossed myself out with an accidental innuendo. Oh, irony...)

**** My internal monologue is always in second person. That might explain a few things.

***** I don't know what it is about me and liminal spaces, but this isn't the first time I have hurled in one. In fourth grade, my class was being led single file back into our classroom after music. I was right smack dab in the middle of the line, and, as I was also a world-class goody-goody, I was waiting to get to my desk to raise my hand and ask permission to go to the bathroom.

I didn't make it then, either. The half of my class at the back of the line was trapped outside the classroom and the half at the front trapped inside as I was ushered to the nurse's office and the custodian was called in to do battle with the Revenge of the Return of the PB&J and Fudge Brownies, Too!

****** I've been listening to Sarah Vowell's wonderful Assassination Vacation, and therefore want to call it a "cuspidor," but "soda-cuspidor" doesn't sound as good. "Cola-cuspidor," perhaps, but it's not as factual. "Coke-cuspidor" works, considering I'm part Texan, but there's a hint of something illicit there I'm not sure I want to encourage.

******* Even if Co-Worker #1 is actually younger than me by several months, I was still seen as the young one who needs coddling and protection even before I put myself in a position to be out-and-out mothered.

obsessive - compulsive