Worst Day of My Life

No, today wasn't the worst day of my life. The worst days of my life all involve someone close to me dying, because there's no repairing those sorts of losses at all.

Today was a very bad day, but nothing that a good hot shower and a washing machine couldn't fix. But it was still one of the most embarrassing, humiliating, mortifying experiences I've ever had. It made me want to cry, that's how bad it was.

Today was my last day at my job for a month, and that's not the badness. They still intend to bring me back in a month, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to sleeping in a little for the next month. But some friends of mine (Dean and Paul) took me to lunch as a Chinese restaurant for my last day. I was eating my chicken chow mein, a dish I happen to enjoy a great deal despite its blandness and simplicity. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I was hit by a wave of horrible, intense nausea and vertigo, the kind of vertigo that comes with a countdown: "Spew in six seconds... Five... Four..." Vertigo so intense that you can already feel the innards getting ready for their curtain call...

That's terror - knowing that you're going to throw up and there's nothing you can do about it, and knowing that you don't have anything like enough time to get to the restrooms, which are way over on the other side of the restaurant, with an obstacle course of happy lunch diners in between.

I don't want to provide too many details, because they're disgusting. Suffice it to say that I didn't make it to the bathroom, and what I was uanble to contain with my napkin ended up on my shirt and pants and socks and shoes. It was so horrible, so depressing, sitting there and having that happen, knowing that I'd just ruined lunch for myself and everyone sitting around me...

Obviously I couldn't go back to work. I managed to strip in the bathroom and flush out my clothes to the point I merely looked wet rather than disgusting, but that sort of job is never entirely complete. So I had to make what apologies I could, get my stuff from my desk, and go home, wet and stinking.

The vertigo and nausea didn't really go away until I got home and could spend some quality time in the bathroom, which left me sweaty and trembling and lying on the floor, still so embarrassed I wanted to cry. Why me? And why today?

Well - I've got a month to get over it, I guess.