Total Barfarama

A buddy of mine reminded me of an old story from our adolescence. Thinking about it made me realize how poetic it was. I played the role of reason and he that of emotion; a classic formula for communication breakdown. We were on a bus together, I in the window seat and he in the aisle seat. He felt ill and feared he was going to vomit. This was due to something we both had consumed before getting on the bus and because of this we were also concerned that the authority figures along on the trip would find out. He was driven by a de facto uncontrollable imperative. I, not being privy to the physicality of his predicament, was more concerned with arriving at a logical solution to the problem. He felt we should switch seats to allow him access to the window whereas I thought he should either will the urge away or ask the driver to pull over. As is the case with most stalemates, the result was messy. The vomit ended up on the floor in front of us. We both suffered for our inability to reach a compromise. I explained to the authority figures that he suffered from problems with motion sickness and thankfully the effluent did not give away its true chemical nature. His resulting burden was embarrassment and our shared burden was living with sticky soles to our shoes. But that incident broke the ice and allowed us to quickly get acquainted with the other people on the trip. It was exactly what the doctor ordered for a couple of conceited cocky bastards who were looking to meet some new people and have some fun.