Emeto Blog

Driving your boyfriend on a mountainous, poorly paved back road. You’ve got a two hour drive ahead of you, and you stopped for lunch at a gas station about thirty minutes ago. Your boyfriend opted for the dreaded gas station sushi, a suspicious little bento box with seaweed salad and a spicy salmon roll, while you had something a little less risky…and probably something that hasn’t been sitting in a poorly refrigerated case for a week.

You talk as you drive, flicking your eyes occasionally to the passenger’s side. Your boyfriend is beginning to sound distracted, giving you one word answers. You ask if everything is okay, and that’s when he says with a thick swallow and a low, sheepish voice, “I think that sushi was a little off.”

You tense up against the steering wheel. Uh oh.

Your boyfriend stays rigid against his seatbelt, as though he’s afraid that any sudden movement will trigger him to feel worse. You quickly turn your head to flash a full glance at him. Though you’ve seen it in cartoons, you’ve never actually seen someone turn green…and to top it off, he’s clammy with a sexy, sickly sweat. You’d turn on the air conditioning if it wasn’t broken.

You’ve been dating for a decent amount of time, yet you’ve never discussed things of this nature, these…bodily discomforts. You don’t want him to feel anymore embarrassed than he already is, so you coyly ask if he’s feeling it upstairs or downstairs.

“I don’t know.” He shuts his eyes and starts breathing in and out at a steady rhythm to keep himself under control. You wonder if you should pull over somewhere, but there’s no shoulders on these mountain highways…and probably no gas station for quite a while. What to do? What to do?

You suggest cracking a window to get some fresh air, and he agrees. You ask your phone to direct you to the nearest gas station, and it tells you that you’ve still got 30 minutes on this bumpy stretch of road. Your boyfriend audibly groans at this information, and you ask if he’ll be able to make it. You suppose he doesn’t have a choice.

You’re trying to make these 30 minutes go fast, so you find yourself hitting the gas and passing other cars (something you practically never do, unless someone is really, really slow). With every pothole and bump and twisty turn, you wince in solidarity. They really need to do something about these back roads.

Your boyfriend has fully folded in on himself, clutching his stomach and cupping his forehead. He’s concentrating. Hard.

“Are you hitting every bump on purpose?” he snaps. You instantly apologize, and after a moment so does he. He doesn’t mean to have an attitude. He knows you’re doing the best you can…but the situation is getting dire.

He breathily says that he doesn’t feel good, and now you’re in full panic mode, too. You feel like you’re reaching some kind of crescendo. There’s no way in hell that sushi’s staying down. He holds a curled fist to his mouth as the uneven asphalt makes your car bounce. You tell him to just breathe, you’re only five minutes away from the gas station…

But unfortunately, it’s too late.

His cheeks swell. Your car is so old that it still has a hand crank. He cranks the window down and shoves his head out. You hear him retching like a sick dog, unproductively…until finally…he’s…productive.

As you near the gas station, he puts his head back in the car, absolutely humiliated and exhausted. You pull into a parking space. You ask him if he wants you to come in with him, and he shakes his head no. You respect this. Somethings are just between a man and his toilet. You tell him you’ll find some medicine for him as he’s fumbling to undo his seatbelt. With a door slam, you watch him rush into the gas station. He bumps into several different people on his way in.

You trail behind him slightly, on a mission to find all the essentials. You grab him a bottle of ginger ale, a pack of peanut butter crackers to nibble on, and then wander to the medication aisle. You pick up bottles, reading symptoms: relief from upset stomach, nausea, heartburn, indigestion, and diarrhea. Sounds about right.

After paying, you knock on the men’s bathroom, interrupting your boyfriend’s burping and heaving.

I’ll be in the car, you say. Take your time.

You sit in the car for a good 20-30 minutes. Just as you’re starting to get worried, your boyfriend opens the car door, looking defeated but with a little more color to his face. You joke that you were about to send in the search and rescue squad to find him. You ask if he’s feeling better.

“Much better.” he says. “I think I got it out of my system.”

You’re glad to hear this, and give him his “presents,” though he declines the medicine since he’s feeling so much better.

You continue your drive, thinking the worst is behind you. After about ten minutes on the road, your boyfriend starts to fidget in his seat

Sickie that throws up easily, getting everything up in 3-4 massive waves of vomit

Sickie that can only get up a little at a time, puking up mouthfuls a in quick succession, easily vomiting 5, 10, 15 times in a row, hardly getting time to breathe

Sickie that gets nauseous very suddenly and has to urgently run to the bathroom, not always making it before they vomit on the floor

Sickie that always struggles to puke, dealing with hours of awful nausea and unproductive gagging before they can finally get relief

Sickie that coughs and coughs until they cough up a wave of sick. Choking after every time they retch or vomit

Sickie that burps a lot, patting their back to help them burp up the trapped air, until they start to gag. Long, wet burps turning into streams of vomit

Sickie that vomits so violently that they get dizzy, see spots, and often faint from the exertion

Sickie that gags and vomits weakly and quietly, exhausted and barely awake

Sickie that can't help puking loudly, their retching and moaning clearly audible even with the door shut and the tap running