Vomit Comet

Interesting night last Saturday.

I was invited to a barbecue over at my old mate Rob Beard's house. Hadn't seen Rob in a while and used to spend time with him in his Brighton flat in '98 and '99, so a mini-reunion was in order. He had now taken up permanent residency in the leafy suburb of Turramurra with his (expectant) wife and so together myself and Chris, Rob's old Brighton mate, made out way out of the city centre, across the harbour bridge and into the wooded avenues of the North Shores.

It wasn't long before Rob was demonstrating his new-found barbecuing prowess, including his piece-de-resistance - sticking a beer can up a chicken's arse to prop it up, and then, whilst rearing and rampant, closing the barbecue lid for a good 45-minute sizzle. The food was fantastic and a few drinks later we decided to go on a late-night bush walk involving beer, a big torch, bats, a chorus of croaking frogs and lots of tripping over tree-roots.

However, it was when I came to leave Turrmurra for Sydney Central that I realised that Chris, who also lived in the city centre, was extremely drunk. Half way through the return train journey he stopped talking, turned green, dropped his head between his knees and started to gurn his way through a series of barely-suppressed gags ; the unmistakeable signs of someome trying very hard not to be sick.

Meanwhile, I was so desperate for a piss I thought my bladder might burst and the ensuing tsunami may take out half the carriage. I looked up from concentrating on not exploding to see Chris had spewed lightly on the floor. Luckily we were approaching Wynyard, his stop, and we alighted there only to witness him hurl violently on to the platform. At this point I couldn't walk and waddled off like a crab to find a toilet and had the longest and best tinkle of my entire life. When I returned about 8 minutes later he'd gone, but he lived only a minute from the station and so I figured he was probably home by now.

"Phew" I thought "Glad that's over". But the worst was yet to come. When I arrived back at the Pink House, I found the hostel in chaos. Marco, a previously unassuming Beckham-alike from Milan, had spray-vomited our room from the convenient vantage point of the top bunk. I couldn't believe it. I was like some Chunder Magnet. As Bruce Willis said upon encountering terrorists for a second time in Die Hard 2: "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?". Indeed, Mr Willis, indeed.

Miranda and Fran had borne the brunt and, marigolding up, broke out the industrial-strength Domestos and proceeded to scrub harder than anyone had ever scrubbed. But the stench remained. So, with room 1 out of action, some room juggling was the order of the day. Or night, as by this point it was 12.15. And so people were shifted and shunted, bumped up and pushed across, swipped and swapped and some people even offered to bunk-up with their recent "acquisitions" in order to free up extra beds.

My sleeping companion was away for the week, or else I would have offered to do the same, and so I was to have Raj's bed. Not, I hasten to add, whilst Raj was in it. No, he came back at 2.30 a bit worse-for-wear and came steaming into his/my room only to wrench back the curtain to find me in his bed. "What. The. Fu[k. Are you doing in my bed?" he demanded wild-eyed. "Shhhhhhhh" I responded. "What do you mean shush. This is MY bed" he retorted before adding, with glee, "Bodyslam!" and with a fully-extended, "der-der-der-derrrrrrr!" Superman-style airdive, threw himself on to me. Luckily, I sausage-rolled to the side before we grappled with each other's wrists trying to get the other into an armlock.

A quiet night then. And all problems caused by the demon drink.