Dry Heaves

There's something extremely unnatural and raucously hilarious about watching someone go to town with "the dry heaves." To stand there, watching that look flash across their face — both of you completely unaware if something's coming up, what it is and how messy it will be. It's a falsehood. It's the human body playing a joke on the "heaver" and all who stand around him. It's like getting in a plane with the blatant intention of jumping out of it at 35,000 feet, only to look out of the open hatch, feel as though you're just about ready to plunge into the abyss — then faint and collapse at the feet of your instructor. Another day, adventurer ... another day.

Everyone has been there. It's been a long night of partying. A few too many cocktails. Perhaps some "beer before liquor," which we all know is scientifically proven to cause any individual to become "never sicker." Perhaps a few too many hits off the peace pipe. No matter the cause, no matter the time or place — we have all stood mere inches away from our friend or loved one; their throat doing the lambada while making a dry-gulping sound that could be confused for a swallow in the spring.

It's at that very dire moment that we all have made that decision. Some of us, under the guise of being the most caring, best friend ever, try to turn our friend the other direction. "You should definitely put your face near that open window over there," we urge them. "The cool air will do you good.... That open window, 25 feet away from me on the other side of the room. Keep going. Yes. Keep going."

There are others, who goad, urging our friend that the dry heave is worse than the ultimate fear of blowing chunks. "Dude, I'm telling you now. You must chug at least a gallon of water... right now! Purge your system. Clean it out. Get this over with." It's just what the dry heaver does not want to hear as they desperately claw at the linoleum floor, trying to keep their mind off the idiotic suggestions of someone who's microwaving churros and scooping old cottage cheese out of some stranger's fridge.

Then there are those who watch in wonder, as sometimes the cause of such ludicrous body spasms are a mystery to all. Like the time I stood in my friend's kitchen, watching his roommate grasp the edges of an industrial-sized garbage pail, face turning red. Gagging and dry heaving to no end.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah," he answered. "It's weird. Happens every morning. Started about nine months ago..."

"Every morning? Man, you should, like go see a doctor about that or something..."

"Yeah, I did," he wheezed.

"And...?"

"Couldn't figure out what was doing it... Doctors, man."

His face flushed red again as he took time out to gag and wheeze over the green pail. I waited.

"There is one thing," he began, wiping his mouth... "Something I started doing nine months ago, but I really doubt that..."

"What did you start doing nine months ago?" I asked, on the edge of my seat.

"Well, for the last nine months I've been smoking ten bowls a day..." he explained, unaffected. "But there's no way that has anything to do with this..."

I stared, incredulous. Watched him heave a few more times. He was empty, thankfully. There would be no oatmeal or late-night pizza coming up anywhere near his location. Nor would a job promotion, a Nobel Peace Prize or the winning slot on the latest "American Idol."

Next to the seizure, the dry heave is the most remarkable involuntary body movement. It is, without a similar bedfellow, the ultimate in unwilling performance art. Thus, we must address the dry heave for what it really is: a pretty-damn hilarious thing to watch, as long as it isn't happening to us, and the person it's happening to isn't planning on graduating from dry heave to upchuck. Cause that, quite honestly, is gross.

— Paul Davidson (paulseth@earthlink.net)