Coming Right up

My younger daughter, S, told me yesterday that she has never seen a performance of The Nutcracker. I have to admit, I was floored at her announcement because I’ve seen it at least seven times now, as have my husband and my older daughter, E.  It has become a holiday tradition of sorts for the three of us to have a lovely dinner downtown and see the show.

S has never sat in the audience; instead, she has been up on the stage. For seven of the past eight years, S danced in a variety of roles. She has been a little mouse, a party girl, a toy soldier, a toy soldier on horseback, an angel, and a big mouse. Well, twice on the big mouse, and believe me, she is still disappointed about it. She has been on pointe and in ballet shoes. She has had her hair curled and her face covered with a mouse head. The one year she missed was due to an injury, and she volunteered to help with the production even when she could not perform.

The Nutcracker is a huge commitment for everyone involved. Auditions are generally held at the end of summer, and practices take place every weekend for months until that one weekend in December. There are many families way more involved and committed to the experience than mine, but we each contribute in some way to make it work.

Honestly, I love to watch the show. I love dressing up and going out and sitting in that slightly uncomfortable concert hall seat. I love when the lights dim and the musicians play. I love the grandeur, and the tradition, and I love when I see my child take the stage for roughly five minutes, knowing that she will have this special experience of realizing the reward of her hard work and dedication as well as the thrill of taking the stage with professionals from around the world for an audience of over 3,000 people.

This year, my sister, LK, joined us to watch the show. After our delicious dinner, we went to the concert hall and took our seats. We had good seats too, almost in the middle of the row, closer to the front, a great spot to see all the action. The first act went off without a hitch, and I was impressed as always by the quality of the performance.

After a twenty-minute intermission, the second act began. I love the second act because that’s when all the trippy stuff happens in the Land of Sweets. Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, and Russian dancers all perform, and the music and choreography and costumes are mesmerizing. Indeed, we were all engrossed when it happened.

Sometime during the Arabian or Chinese dances, we heard this horrible sound. It came from two rows behind us, and it was like a splash, only human. A human splash. It wasn’t a sneeze or a cough; in fact, it was so unusual a sound to hear in public that at first we didn’t know what to make of it.

About thirty seconds later, it became aromatically clear that the sound we heard was, in fact, the spew of vomit. My sister is notoriously phobic about vomit, and E is almost as bad, so the fact that the two of them were in such close proximity to someone else’s puke and powerless to flee made all three of us anxious. We had to turn around repeatedly to see if it was directly behind us. The large man seated in that row may have been targeted. He had an awkward look on his face and moved around, unsure if he should stay seated or get up and leave. We took comfort in knowing it was at least a row away.

We covered our noses with our fingers, but seriously, the smell. E, who was not in the greatest of moods, courtesy of being seventeen, decided there was no way she could sit through the rest of the show. She did that thing where she would start to stand and then sit and then sort of squat because she didn’t want to be rude, but really, it was too late for that, all the while with that look on her face that showed her contempt for other people and crowds and bodily functions. I told her to go, and so she did.

At that point, my sister took E’s seat. Apparently, the woman next to her made the mistake of putting her purse on the floor, as well as the bottoms of her shoes. LK leaned into me and we covered our faces with our collars because our fingers alone were not enough of a filter. On my other side, my husband sat and watched the show, oblivious to the panic and disgust we were experiencing. He later said he could smell it but chose to ignore it. I insist that smelling vomit is not a choice.

With E gone and LK next to me, we turned back to the show, and damn if we didn’t miss almost all of the Chinese and Russian dancing. After a bit, the smell dissipated, or we adjusted like my husband, but we were able to make it through all of act two and curtain bows.

We met up with E in the lobby. She told us that after cleaning the soles of her shoes in the restroom, she sat on a bench by herself. Soon after, an older woman sat next to her, even though all the other benches were empty. She held in her hand a large trash bag, inside of which was her vomit-covered coat. She gave E a sheepish look, and E got up and moved to another bench.

I debated asking for a refund for E’s ticket. The seats were over 55 a head, and she was too grossed out to see the entire show. I also thought for about a minute or two that they should have turned on the lights and thrown some cat litter or baking soda all over that puke, but the show, as they say, must go on. There was nothing to do but sit and watch.

After congratulating S on another successful show, we spent the drive home discussing what would cause a grown woman not to get up and leave if she felt that she was going to be sick. She certainly wasn’t a child who may not understand that nauseated feeling, but an adult? And in a formal theatre? Again, it wasn’t a heavy metal show or a football game; it was the motherfucking ballet. Have some class, people.

I wanted to have some sympathy for the woman. She didn’t set out to ruin everyone’s evening. She didn’t feel well, and for whatever reason, she wasn’t able to leave before she got sick. But then I thought about the audition and all those Saturdays of practice and the hundreds of dollars spent for everyone to watch the show, and I decided no.

You ruined more than your own night; you ruined the performance for at least two rows of people. You made me miss the Chinese dance. Perhaps you should stay home and watch it on DVD, or, at the very least, bring a discreet bag with you. Pick an aisle seat maybe. Wait and eat after the show. Go to a different show, maybe Disney on Ice. I’m sure you won’t be the only one puking there.

How to Get Expelled From Hogwarts

[Puke Disclaimer: The following blog contains a barf story. More than one barf story. You have been warned. This means you, LM.]

Have you ever been somewhere where you know someone threw up right before you arrived? It’s the worst, isn’t it, to walk into a room and that tell-tale smell hits you like the wave of nausea that hit the person that got sick.  It’s bad enough in a college dorm stairwell on the weekend or at your kid’s school, but at an amusement park, well, it's hardly amusing.

To this day, I cannot ride on the Carousel of Progress at the Magic Kingdom at Disney World because once, at least two decades ago, I sat in an area where puke had happened. If you’ve never been on that ride, it is an exhibit from the 1964’s World’s Fair that features the changes in our lives through electricity over the past one hundred years. It is a traveling theater that shows six different vignettes, and the ride lasts a good 20 minutes. That’s twenty minutes of being trapped in a theater with vomit stench, which still haunts me to this day.

I’m not a big fan of puke, which begs the question, is anyone?  I will do pretty much anything to not throw up. Shallow breathing, fresh cold air, small sips of water. I don’t like to get sick at home, but the idea of puking in public is just beyond comprehension. Not that I haven’t before. When I was about nine, I went to Great America in Illinois with my grandfather, my sisters, and some other people that I cannot recall at this point in my life. I was enjoying the hell out of myself, munching on cheese puffs and downing coke after coke, when someone suggested we ride the Ferris wheel. It wasn’t a traditional Ferris wheel, more a three armed ride with little baskets that held a group of people. One arm would be on the ground loading, one midway in the air, and one all the way up.

 We were in one of the baskets with another couple, some unfortunate strangers who made the mistake of saying they were a party of two and had to join us, like when you have to share a table with strangers at a hibachi restaurant. Things were going well until we got all the way in the air, and then the combination of the movement, the height, and the cheese puffs proved too much for my system. I attempted puking in my hands, but to no avail. My orange puke went through my fingers, all over me, my white shorts, and the basket. I wonder if those people remember that day as vividly as I.

I try to limit myself from things that might potentially make me sick, such as certain rides at amusement parks and too many cheese puffs. I don’t ride roller coasters that go upside down. I don’t ride carousels or tea cups or flying elephants or free falls or anything that goes in a circle. I avoid 3-D motion simulators, and if I find myself in such a situation, I close my eyes so that the effects of the 3-D part are not nauseating. Even with all my careful planning, though, I can still manage to get sick.

As a special holiday treat, my family went to Orlando right before Christmas this year. We are all big Disney fans and go about once every two years or so.  My daughters are getting older now, and we decided to try Universal Studios instead of sticking only to Walt Disney World like we usually do. I knew there would be a number of rides we probably would avoid, but we all wanted to see the Wacky World of Harry Potter, or whatever it’s called, so we made an exception for this trip.

We arrived just as the park opened and hurried toward the rear where the Harry Potter part is hidden. I have heard from many friends about horrendous waits to see it and ride the rides, people who have waited in line for four hours for what amounts to five minutes of Harry Potter magic. We thought we might be able to beat the rush, even though gobs of people in garnet and gold striped scarves and long black robes literally ran past us to get in line first. We approached the line and asked the attendant to tell us about the ride, knowing full well that I might feel a little queasy since  motion sickness warnings were posted by the entrance. The attendant, who I’m pretty sure had never grown a pubic hair nor touched a woman’s breast, told us it was a fabulous ride and not as bad as the roller coasters, so we got in the line.

We moved through the waiting areas pretty quickly, although they were really cool for even the most casual of Harry Potter fans and almost worth the wait. The worst part was the locker room, where they require you stow your bags and belongings before entering the ride. It was a mass of people fighting to stick their fingers on a screen, which was the only way to get a small locker assigned to you. I survived the pushing and shoving to lock up my backpack before joining my family back in the line. We walked all through Hogwarts quickly, too quickly to even notice all the details, before we were ready to board the ride.We got in our seats awkwardly, the shoulder bar harness was lowered unto us, and we were whisked away into the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

Here’s where things get a little sketchy. I could tell right away that this was going to be one of those flight simulator things, where you feel like you are riding a broom on your way to a quidditch match or to some mystery or whatever; I wasn’t really paying attention. What I was doing was keeping my eyes shut tight so that I couldn’t let my brain get fooled into thinking I was flying.  Then I felt heat, so I opened my eyes to find an animatronic dragon breathing fake fire at me. That I did not find nauseating, but unfortunately it didn’t last long before the seats were off in another direction that caused me to again close my eyes. There might have been some spiders too, but it was hard to tell through my eyelashes.

The movement of that ride wasn’t any movement I’ve experience in my natural life. We weren’t going side to side or up and down or back and forth. We were undulating, like a witch stirring a cauldron counterclockwise. With each tilt and roll of the ride, the granola parfait I ate for breakfast also tilted and rolled, inching up my esophagus. I tried the usual tricks, shallow breathing, closed eyes, relaxing my muscles.

It came without the usual warnings. No hot flashes or sudden sweats. No flood of saliva in my mouth. No serious stomach churning. The next thing I knew I was heaving, the total body hunching heaves, not the delicate upchuck kind. I heaved once, then twice. The third time, I threw up in my mouth.

This is what I was thinking: Keep your mouth closed. You don’t have a change of clothes. Keep your mouth closed. Swallow. You can do this. It’s 9:30 in the morning. Keep your mouth closed. They are going to have to close the ride because of you. The ride that people wait in line for hours to see. The only reason half the people are even in this park.  Do you want to be the person who shuts down fucking Harry Potter because you didn’t believe the motion sickness warnings posted on every fucking wall? Keep. Your. Mouth. Closed.

And then, as quickly as it began, the ride ended. We got off the ride, me breathing hard through my nostrils. We forced our way back to the locker room through the obligatory gift shop. I had to get a stranger to help me open my locker because I couldn’t get the system to read my sweaty fingertip.

I found my family milling around outside.

My oldest daughter said,” I didn’t like that.”

My youngest daughter said, “I didn’t either.”

My husband said, “That is the coolest ride in the world! How could you not like it?”

I said, “I just threw up in my mouth."

“Do you wanna ride it again,” my husband said.

“I need to sit down. I don’t feel very good.” I answered.

“No!” my daughters shouted in unison. “Let’s get a butterbeer.”

A butterbeer is one of those weird Harry Potter foods from the book. It’s kind of like a cream soda with a hint of cookie and a splash of butterscotch. It doesn’t go well with nausea.  I would recommend water and a saltine instead, which they don’t sell in the world of Harry Potter. For the record, I kept that down too.

I found out afterward that a number of rides at most amusement parks have a stationary seat for pussies like me who like to throw up on the the coolest ride in the world. Hm, that would have been nice to know before I decided to be a good sport and go with the flow.