Dressed To Barf – An Over The Hill Obsession

All I need is my Grandma’s flower dress and some food to barf.

Twenty-five years of torment came to a screeching halt the day grandma died and willed me a single item – not a dime, not an acre, but a pretty yellow sundress. Light, flowing and patterned in flowers, this feminine garment laid snugly over my masculine body from the moment I tried it on at the morgue.

Each flower pedal perfectly printed as though Monet himself returned from the grave to paint daisies upon a cotton/nylon blended canvas.

The open bottom allowing a level of freedom my nether regions had never known – like a baby bird escaping its prison nest on the wings of flight.

Despite this apparent apparel awakening, my transformation was not complete until the mortician accidentally dropped granny.

Her geriatric body clumped hard against the cracked tile floor as the effects of rigor mortis had stiffened her old lady lumps. Then, as some type of ocular swan song, her glass eye popped out of socket and rolled ominously towards my feet.

It was at this moment that the musky air of the morgue combined with the spin-cycle rumbling of Taco Bell in my belly to produce a waterfall of vomit that covered the front of my new sundress like a bizarro baby bib.

The puke path crusted over and my granny’s glass eye waded in a 7-layer burrito puddle. My life path was set.

The plot was simple. I’d hide in the bushes of a retirement home and wait for an old lady to go for a walk. The moment I got a whiff of moth balls or a glimpse of walker, I barf on my dress and giggle like a fat kid with a cupcake.

Unfortunately, the local police were unsupportive of my golden aged upchuck ambitions and banned me from all of the best spots – bingo night, the church rectory and of course – meetings for Daughters of the American Revolution.

So I took a job with a motorized wheelchair company but to my dismay, the clientele consisted mostly of old dudes. I couldn’t muster up bile to fill my mouth let alone unleash a healthy hurl. Thus, my lovely flower sundress remained unstained.

Until, I met Gertie.

Four foot nine with a crooked spine – cataracts and heart attacks. A tuft of blue hair lay atop her soft scalp like cotton candy on a cantaloupe. A few stray strands of facial hair hung from her chin like Shaggy with the breath of Scooby Doo. A steady diet of gin and cat food left her figure bloated and uneven – with breasts hanging like two condoms filled with cheese wiz. Her varicose veins were a road map to an upset stomach.

It was love at first spew and my dress had the partially digested food trail to prove it. Our relationship blossomed once she mistook me for her grandson and I mistook her pockmarks for vomit targets. I remember our fateful first encounter outside the courthouse as I patiently waited for jury duty volunteers…

“Would you like a Werther’s Original, Ralphie?” Gertie offered like a maternal apparition.

“Hrrrrrruuuuuggggghhhhhhhh,” I yelped as I filled my dress and the nearest potted plant with a thick substance that can only be described as gummy bear salsa.

Our atypical love affair lasted weeks. She regurgitated boring stories about her spoon collection and I tossed cookies on her afghans. Some days I would forget to eat and end up dry heaving during intense crochet sessions but Gertie didn’t mind. She just chugged along, feeding me hard candy and knitting a yarn sick bag.

Then, I received a phone call that changed everything.

“Hello, this is Gertie’s caregiver,” the shaky voice on the other line muttered.

“Oh my God – she’s dead isn’t she?” I gripped my sundress as the words slipped out of my mouth like a sloppy joe river at a Barry Manilow concert.

“No, she’s fine – unlike you…you sick creep! Stay away from Gertie or I’ll call the cops!” the woman demanded shakily. I could hear the tired, wavering sound in her voice and she sounded old – very old.

I reached into my gut and prepared for an epic heave. But it never came. The floodgates were closed, the retch river – dammed. There would be no more senior spit up moments without Gertie. Her caregiver played judge, jury and executioner that day with eternal nausea and a starch-fresh sundress as my life sentence.

The following week consisted of listless wandering with an empty heart and a full belly. Sure, I frolicked through a field or two, holding my dress open like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music but it couldn’t compare to the ecstasy of old lady barfing.

Finally, the dress was ruined. Repeated baths of stomach acid upon its delicate fibers left my beloved garment in total disrepair.

No more flower sundress. No more puking. It was time to man up.

So I traded the dress in for a pair of my grandpa’s old knickers and flipped on the boob tube to relax. Suddenly, a nature program about Otters filled my mind with wonderment and my pants with pee.

With soaking wet knickers and my life back on track, I was headed for the Zoo. I was going to find an otter and I was going to wet my knickers. Everything finally made sense.

All I need are my Grandpa’s knickers and some water to pee.