by Evangeline Uriyu

Created on: December 29, 2009

The Throw-up Spot

If you have never experienced carsickness, you cannot possibly begin to imagine how incredibly awful it is. It is similar to a bad hangover but without the blunted edge of numbness.  One gets to experience every roll of the stomach singularly and without mercy. 

I got to experience this affliction almost on a weekly basis when I was a kid.  My uncle George lived sixty miles away from us in Hamden Connecticut.  It was a beautiful ride following the Housatonic river, crossing a dam over Lake Zoar, and passing many interesting little towns and lake communities. In the fall there was a magnificent display of colorful leaves that the sunshine only intensified.  In the winter, though the drive was more dangerous, the icicle displays that dripped from the rocks on winding Route 34 amazed me and my two siblings. Spring was magnificent and in summer we craned our necks to see if a water skier wipe out on the lake or river. 

Actually I am really stretching the truth.  I only saw most of those things as an adult years later.  I never made it to the dam, and that is where the best things to see began.  Just before the dam, in a little spot just wide enough to pull off the road was my “throw-up” spot.  Everyone waited patiently while I emptied my stomach of breakfast, lifesavers and anything else that was in there.

I had a window seat because I was the oldest of the three children.  I would look out the window and pretend to be a dancer twirling and leaping through the woods and lawns we passed on our way.  After about a half hour, the nausea would start.  I would have to lie down.  I remember vividly studying the plaid design of the vinyl back seat trying to distract myself from experiencing the nausea. I can still see that plaid vividly to this day fifty years later. In fact any plaid still makes me feel nauseous to this day. Then the moaning began.  I couldn’t help it, it just escaped my mouth and I prayed it might take the edge of the nausea. I would be so out of it with nausea, I have no memory of what my younger brother and sister did during this phase of our journey. 

I continued to moan and writhe until mom could tell I was getting really close to eruption. It must have been the pitch of the moaning that tipped her off.  That almost always, I’d say 99% of the time occurred at the pull off point before the dam.  So everyone sat in the

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