Sneezing Food

"I can't believe I threw up in front of Dean Wormer."
"Face it Flounder, you threw up on Dean Wormer." - Flounder and D-Day in "Animal House"
I mention this piece of wisdom about regurgitation because it happened to come up last night - along with the rest of the contents of my son's stomach. At three in the morning. Throwing up is kind of like an earthquake. There's never a good time for it to happen, and you kind of have to hope that you'll be awake enough to deal with it when the time comes.
As a parent I feel very lucky for the relatively few times I have had to answer the sound of the puke train. Last night was a regrettable combination of too much root beer, candy, ice cream and oh did I mention he finished off the second half of his hamburger at about ten thirty just before he climbed into bed? It should come as no particular surprise to anyone that the eruption occurred. The surprise might be that it took as long as it did to roil to the surface.
After parking the kid at the toilet, mother and father set about the task of hazmat cleanup. We were pretty solid for three in the morning, and it was only after ten minutes or so that we remembered to check in on the boy. We peeled his pajamas off and toweled him off for a night's rest on the couch - next to a just-in-case bucket.
It was at this point that my wife made the observation that unfortunately just after chow has been blown, the attention goes to the barf, not the barfer. Contain, isolate, remove, clean. Otherwise we all run the risk of yakking just from the sights and smell. It's a pretty good thing that most of the time we see the backs of people's heads when the lunch starts to reverse. I have been that nice guy/friend who held girls' hair as they prayed to the porcelain god. The sound is awful, but on a couple of very specific occasions I have stared into the face of vomit and lived to tell the tale.
Given the amount of drinking that happened in and around me back in the day, the fact that I only had two people throw up on me seems a little like a gift. Not that a great many people didn't throw up in my presence, but seeing someone's eyes go wide just before the spray is something that you don't forget. It's a bonding experience that embarrassment won't allow you to acknowledge in polite company, but it's a level of intimacy that very few of us share. Your innermost - well - fluids.
When the morning comes, it's back to normal. My son wanted to know why he couldn't have a soda at the movies today. Sorry son, it's still just a little too fresh for me still.