What the kids of today don’t realize is that automobiles weren’t always the microcosms of leather-interior luxury with DVD players, X-Boxes, satellite navigation, temperature control, and iPod docking stations.  Far from it.  When I was a kid, cars were hot, stuffy, bouncy, and smelled of exhaust.  The sun beat through the untinted windows mercilessly causing car sickness AND heat stroke.  It then makes since that my generation has a lot … and I mean a lot … of car stories that involve puking.

Here is one such story …

Twas 1984.  My mom and I came back to Oklahoma to visit my grandmother and my sister, Wendy.  Due to the volatile nature of our household, one child or another or more was always stuck in another person’s house.  The only time I can remember that all of us lived together was when we were on Army bases throughout the Southwest.  But my dad like to walk around the house in his Army-issue plum smugglers, so I try to block a lot of those memories.

We flew there, which was a huge event for me as it was my first time on an air plane.  And we were going to fly back.  My grandma loaded us into her car, which I believe was a Chevelle Malibu, and drove us to the Will Rogers Airport.  Yep, the airport that is named after a guy that died … in an airplane crash.  That’s Oklahoma.

My grandma drove.  My mom sat behind her in the backseat and I rode backseat, passenger side.  Wendy rode shot gun because she got carsick very easily and needed the fresh air in her face.  The AC didn’t work.  In fact, I’m positive that it was never installed in the car in the first place.

As we completed the 72 mile drive from Stillwater to Tulsa, Wendy is getting more sick by the minute.  She rests her head on the window sill.  I’m sitting directly behind her with the wind blowing in my face, as well.  With so much wind coupled with the fact that we’re going 65mph with four open windows, there isn’t a lot of talk.

Suddenly Wendy proclaims, “I’m gonna throw up.”  My grandma tells her to put her head out the window to keep it from splashing in the car.  My sister dutifully obeys and spews out the sick, slimy, half-clear/half-yellow stomach bile into the Oklahoma winds on the Cimmaron Turnpike.  Problem is that those winds are racing right back into the car … directly at me.

There was a moment, and I remember this VERY clearly, that I can see the puke cloud frozen in the air, hanging there like the Matrix … or the smoke monster … and I know its coming right at me.  I open my mouth to say something or perhaps in my shock, but just like that the world resumes and …

SPLASH.

The puke bombards me fully in the face like I’m drinking from the fire hose.  Worse still, my mouth was open as I tried to quickly bargain with God to just kill me before it landed.  Yes, I ate her puke.  Lord help me, I swallowed some of my sister’s puke.  Probably a mix of Dr. Pepper and Sonic hamburgers.

As I said, this was back in the old school days, when men were men and women were … um … manly.  My grandma didn’t stop.  She didn’t even pull over.  I think she tossed some tissue from her purse over her shoulder into the back seat.  My mom pressed herself against the opposite side of the car like I was an Ebola carrier.  I sat in stunned horror for the rest of the trip.

When we arrived at the airport, the hot wind had glazed the puke onto my face like rouge and chapped my lips.  I was too scared to lick them.  Wendy was very sad, crying that her send off to her little brother had gone so … well … catastrophically.  I think she summed it up best when through her sobs, she proclaimed:

“It’s the last day I get to see my brother and I just puked all over his face!”

Good times.