Airport Nightmares: Bangalore Belly

After taking the train from Mysore back to Bangalore before heading up to Delhi, Aracely and I found it prudent to kill most of a bottle of Tullamore Dew between the two of us in the hotel room while Mark slept.

The next morning waking up bright and early for our flight we felt fucking fantastic.  We somehow herded ourselves into a reasonably priced cab back to the airport and proceeded to focus on not vomiting.  But driving through the chaos of Bangalore traffic often makes it difficult to focus and Aracely didn’t quite make it out of the cab before pulling a plastic bag out of her backpack and proceeding to vomit into it.  I immediately asked the cab driver to pull over.  Part out of concern for her, part out of concern for the car (and the subsequent bill) but mostly out of concern for myself because if I smelled her vomit I’m pretty sure there would’ve been a terrible chain reaction.

We made it another 20 minutes to the airport, which in India requires you to show your boarding pass to security before even being let in.  As Mark sprinted towards the security check, I started rolling my suitcase across the parking lot trying to keep up, and the weight of pulling 15 kilograms started to feel like too much.  My arms were shaking, my legs were shaking, and my mouth was sweating.  It was coming.

While breathing through my nose and collecting copious amounts of acid spit in my mouth I pulled out my passport and boarding confirmation and handed it to the armed guard.  He nodded me through and I walked into the air conditioned terminal as the room started spinning.  I looked at the other two, pointed at my mouth, bit my cheeks, pointed at my suitcase, pointed at them and started walking as fast as I could towards the general direction of the bathroom sign.  50 meters across the airport my mouth could barely hold any more spit.  25 meters more I had to burp.  Just a little further to the bathrooms.   Nope.  I veered to the left and doubled over next to the ashtray garbage can (meaning there was only a hole parallel to the wall).  I awkwardly spit a mouthful of spit into the can. I dry heaved.  Nothing.

Oh right I was dehydrated.  I crawled a few feet more into the bathroom (it was ridiculously clean for India), and leaned on the wall trying to throw up.  No dice.  There was literally nothing in me I could possibly throw up.  Thankfully.  I think.  I walked comfortably out of the bathroom feeling much better especially considering I’d done nothing more than spit, and purchased a pomegranate juice and walked back to check in for the flight.

A few minutes later we were through security and waiting at the boarding gate where I was now classily sipping on a Perrier, acting all high and mighty thinking my hangover had been defeated.  But that sneaky bastard had manipulated me.  That hangover got exactly what he wanted.  The bubbles of the Perrier made me need to burp, and then my stomach was all like “Gotcha bitch!  That ain’t gonna be no burp!”  I bolted to the bathroom.

Maybe drinking bright red pomegranate juice wasn’t the best idea because it looked like I slaughtered a small animal and bled it out into the toilet bowl (hey at least I have good aim).  And since it was all liquid and came in spurts between gasps for air, sorry to get graphic here, but it sounded like I ran into the stall, slammed the door and had explosive diarrhea.  And there was most definitely other people in the bathroom, including a bathroom attendant. At least they probably looked at me running in and assumed I was a westerner with Delhi Belly.  Wow, I just realized I said that I’d rather have people think I have explosive diarrhea than face the embarrassment of the truth that I was in fact so hungover from doing nothing that I couldn’t even walk through the airport.   What the fuck is wrong with me.

Sunglasses on, cap on my head I tried to slink incognito out of the toilet, receiving strange looks from the bathroom attendant as I rinsed my mouth out in the bathroom sink.  Hey screw you lady, at least I didn’t make it smell any worse in here.  Somehow, the three of us made it onto the flight in one piece, but I knew better than to trust my stomach.  As I shut my eyes and leaned back  in the seat and took a deep breath of air that smelled of sanitizing products and curry, I suddenly lurched forward.  I reached into the seat pocket, retrieved the vomit bag and placed it gently in my lap.  Just in case.