These words that I write, they keep me from total insanity. -Charles Bukowski

Jun 8, 2009

Involuntary Personal Protein Spill...

Involuntary Personal Protein Spill, On A Plane...

I don’t know about you guys, but I am a huge George Carlin fan. I love all his stuff, all the way back to his radio days, right up until he died a few months ago. So I have a bunch of his bits memorized and have even used a few of them (credited of course) throughout my writings. Now another one of his jokes came to apply to my life and it made me laugh so I am going to share it with you.

One of his jokes is about how Americans sanitize their language. You know, make it less intense. Some examples...

Toilet paper became bathroom tissue.
Shell shock became post traumatic stress disorder.
Stupid became learning disabled.
Ugly became an attractiveness deficit.

and finally, he said that "I am not going to be surprised if I hear 'puking' referred to as an involuntary personal protein spill. Now that you know that, here's the story.

So we actually managed to get the hell out of Sharana. We left the other day on a plane, a military plane. A C-130 no less. Now we all know that military aircraft are built by the lowest bidder and as a result are notorious for the uncomfortable rides they provide.

Think about that, 60 or so GI’s, 10,000 feet in the air in a bird built by the cheapest motherfucker the military could find. Well, I feel a lot better.

Anyway, we get up in this bird, jam about 60 people plus all their shit into the plane and we take off.

Now just the fact that we are flying made me laugh. Its about a 20 minute flight from Sharana to Salerno. So as soon as you get up, you are already coming down. Its kind of like flying from Chicago to Milwaukee. Its stupid. But I don’t mind because nothing explodes in the air.

So now we are up there, and apparently one of our more useless soldiers had done something a little unintelligent.

Before we had left Sharana, in a last effort to absorb as much of the good shit that they had there, he ate an entire pizza and had a few cans of pop on top of that. Right before we left! (Anyone see where this is going?)

Now the Air Force is notorious for their complete and utter lack of consideration for those riding in the back. If you get a pilot who has a sense of humor you are going to be in for one hell of a ride. Which, given the fact that I, and every other GI on the plane, either has a cast iron stomach or didn’t eat an entire pizza and 4 cans of pop before the flight, made the ride a lot of fun. All of us, except for one!

So we are about 10 minutes from landing and the pilot decides that we need to see Salerno out the windows before we land there. So he basically turns the bird on its side. You know that little queasy feeling you get when you are driving a little too fast over a hump and you drive up and then start coming down and it feels like your stomach jumped into your throat? Well multiply that by 10 and you know what it feels like in these birds when Captain Shithead starts playing with the controls.

Well, I got a kick out of it. So I was looking out the window and bouncing in my seat like a two year old. “Do it again, do it again!” You know that sort of shit. I can’t help it, I stopped maturing at about 9 years of age. Unfortunately, I did not stop growing!

Now this other guy, Pizza boy, he is not having the same experience that I am. His stomach has decided to vacate all its contents.

Any rational and reasonably mature person would probably try to calm him down, maybe get him some water, or a barf bag or something like that. You know, try to help.

What did I do? I started watching with rapt attention and anticipation.

I watched as pizza boy puked up his lunch into his mouth four times, yet each time he managed to choke it back down and keep from splattering a large pepperoni lovers all over the cargo deck of this plane.

This took about 4 or 5 minutes. And given my A.D.D. And complete lack of patience for anything at all, the time this was taking started to piss me off.

So I started to cheer him on. “Come on, puke motherfucker. Let’s see it! I want to see what you had for lunch! Let’s see it! Turn it out! C’mon, C’mon! Do it! Do it now!”

You know, real adult of me isn’t it. Well, apparently that didn’t work. Oh, and don’t think I was the only one cheering him on. Everyone in the plane was calling for his guts on the floor.

Now the quickest way to get a guy to yak when his body wants to is to have other people make the puking sound and motions so that he can hear them...so that’s what we did.

A chorus of ‘blech, blach” And everyone opening their mouths like their going to puke. So now you have a plane full of 59 GI’s trying to induce vomiting on one poor soul. Well, he should’ve known better. Like the mom says, “Its nobody’s fault but your own.”

Finally at long last, he pulled off his helmet, cradled it in his hands like it was a baby...AND YAKED RIGHT INTO IT!

As soon as the first wave hit, if you didn’t know better you would’ve thought we were at US Cellular field and Scotty Pods had just knocked one out the park.

Cheering, cheering from every corner of the plane. Then the second wave hit him and the cheering just grew louder.

It was beautiful. I know its sick. I know its twisted. But hey, its a warzone and this is what we do. Don’t judge.

By the time the elation of that moment wore off we were hitting the ground. Which in and of itself was funny because I paid so much attention to pizza boy that I wasn’t paying attention to what the plane was doing. So when we hit the ground, it startled me, and I actually turned to the guy next to me and screamed, “We better be landing or I am going to be pissed!”

He smiled, and nodded.

Now they taxi us to where we need to go, and they shut down the plane. We started offloading our gear. Then one of the crew members came out of the front of the plane.

I jumped up and grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. “Thanks man, tell the pilot that was beautiful. He got this douche bag over here to launch his lunch!”

“Really, and that wasn’t even a good one!”

“Well, call me when you got a good one, because I want to see that! Please pass my compliments on to the pilot for a wonderful flight.”

Yes, I thanked the pilot for making one of my brothers in arms puke up his lunch.

This made my whole day. I spent the rest of the afternoon with a little more bounce in my step. Its funny how its the little things that can make you so damn happy.

And that was the highlight of the day. The rest was filled with carrying around heavy shit for long distances. You know, regular soldier shit. Then I went to sleep.

And my story is now over.

Later,

I love you Mom...

9 comments:

  1. Being the 'Sympathy-Puker' that I am, I almost brought up my coffee reading the story of Pizza. Any one of my four kids will tell you of memories when they were sick, Mom holding the cold washcloth over their foreheads and pushing the poor, sick child aside so Mom could take over the puke bucket. My favorite story, is driving home from Ohio and stopping at Wendy's for Frostys. Erin (daughter #2) is in the backseat giving me the soft, "Momma, I don't feel so good." a little further and we'll pull over. Nope. Frosty all over the backseat. We pull over in a Church parking lot, just as Sunday evening service was letting out. Here I am 7 months pregnant with John (my youngest) holding my daughter, and both of us puking into an empty parking place. A couple of nice ladies come to us and offer help, I suggested paper towels...they put their hands on our heads and prayed. Don't get me wrong, that was nice, and most likely needed...I then had to walk into the church to find the paper towels to clean up the car, which of course induced more puking. I'll tell you about my oldest son puking scrambled eggs into my lap in the back seat of a car, next time :)
    Puke stories are normally hilarious... just not at the time!
    Fortuanately, today I'm not unwell.
    ~AM

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  2. Well perhaps you can loan him that hat of your that you had to get out of the connex until his is cleaned. And to jump on Airmom's train of puke stories, when I was growing up whenever we went on a family vacation my sister had to puke during some point. On my head while I was sleeping is my favorite. She'd had spaghetti for dinner.

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  3. This one had me laughing as well. What made me laugh is the "do it again, do it again" part too - LOL I've met you so the visual of that is hilarous. That was good.

    The Ghost Mom :)

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  4. Mud Puppy,

    I know this is a war zone and things get a little hairy sometimes but this......man....I don't know. I think I'll call you sick puppy from now on. Like AM I think every parent has a puke story. I will save mine for a different time. Suddenly I feel the need to move closer to the bathroom!!!

    Pops

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  5. poor kid! every curvy road had me looking for a barf bag. UGH!

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  6. Never ever puke sauerkraut soup! yes, there is such a thing and it doesn't taste any better the 2nd time around!

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  7. Hi Mud Puppy,
    Sounds like that involuntary personal protein spill was very therapeutic for you.I'm glad the "up chuck" made you happy. I do not do puking. However, if I was in a plane being rolled on it's side by some perverse pilot, well, once I stopped puking, I would have to take some serious retaliatory action. Keep rockin' in the free world, MP. Stay safe in your new home away from home.

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  8. Toooo funny! And I was ready to hurl reading it out loud to my husband, who sits at his own laptop not three feet behind me and want to enjoy the funny story, too.

    popcorn---that is the worst thing thrown up beside my bed by firstborn son. it gets all embedded in the carpet.

    But, Airman mom wins the prize with her story in the church parking lot. Yikes. Go Airman Mom!

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  9. And I like Involuntary Protein Spill Engineer for the answer to what do moms do?? we are Involuntary Protein Spill Engineers!

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