Standing By

Trust Me

(Austin)

Two rides. Two rides of jumping around like a fish out of water on the roadway was all in the world it took to activate my motion sickness. Thought I'd grown out of it by the time I hit my teens—never had an issue once I started driving, once my little kid vestibular system settled down. Winding country roads. No problem. Trains. Just fine. Cruise ships. Went swimmingly. Tour busses. Bring it on. Airplanes. Well, as long as there was minimal to no turbulence, I was Georgia peachy. Put me on a busy LA road with construction on both sides of the street, potholes, zooming cars, and Scott's inability to stay in an established lane, and I get thrown into a tailwind. I'd told Scott at least three times, as nicely as I possibly could, on the way to the hospital to please, please drive straight, but he was too preoccupied with poor Avi, with the bustling side of the road and sidewalks, and with jabbering at Mitch to oblige my requests. I let that one slide after the first ten minutes, electing to just close my eyes and trying to will the nausea away by pure determination. Rob kept on trying to talk to me and I finally snapped at him. I was having a hard enough time on my own. Then we stopped to get tacos and, as empty as my stomach was, the smell was just adding to my misery. He started blowing his straw wrapper at me like he was five years old, just kept sliding it back on the end to do it again. Over and over. I tolerated it the first six times before finally confiscating and, again, snapping at him. Once we got to the hospital, and after the elevator took us upstairs, my stomach settled down enough for me to be a normal functioning human being again. I probably tested its limits with my taco lunch though.

I stupidly got back in Scott's car on the way back to the hotel (dunno what the hell I was thinking) and zoom, we were back to flailing all over the damn roadway again. I probably should not have yelled at him, but I did. Just couldn't help it. The filter between my brain and my mouth seemed to have been broken by my vertigo and nausea. He dished every bit of the sass right back at me though, so I figured we were about even. Except this time, getting out of the car did not magically cure me. Rob seemed to sense my worsening mood and tried telling me dirty jokes, which actually were pretty funny and made me laugh, but every time I laughed, my head jiggled and made my eyes swim. Then they found some girl they started pandering all over in the hotel. For one of the first times in my life, I did not feel flirty. I just wanted to go upstairs and empty my stomach in a suitable place; pretty sure barfing all over the hotel lobby would not win me any friends. The elevator jostled so much I ended up snapping at Rob, who just kept sticking his head out to look at the girl. She wasn't even very attractive. For one thing, she looked like something out of a Cat Fancier's magazine. Yeah, I judged that book by its cover. Finally, the three of us went up without them. Chance ran to get his migraine medicine, Adam went to get his underwear, and I tucked myself into my bathroom and had a very satisfying vomit session.

I stood back up, my head still spinning even though I no longer felt nauseous. I held it between both hands. God, make it stop. Was I this miserable as a kid? Or had it decided to strike back up with a vengeance? I rummaged through my toiletry bag in dim hopes of finding something—anything—that might help. Aspirin, Tums, a sleep aid, caffeine pills. When I take the sleep aid, I'm out hard and it's difficult as hell to wake up and I need a handful of caffeine pills. Or coffee or a Red Bull, but I've had a couple of bad episodes with the Red Bull and never cared to repeat that experience again. Drank it on three occasions and it always ended in a trip to the ER with a heart rate of over two hundred, and each time I'd been scared out of my mind that I would have a heart attack and die. My friends had confiscated every can in the house before I accidentally killed myself and we'd invested in a very large coffee machine instead. Coffee didn't affect me nearly as badly.

I groaned at the contents of my toiletry bag. Nothing I had with me was gonna help me one bit. I surveyed my stash sadly and resigned myself to bumbling around like a drunk.