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| The house Pastor Stef grew up in |
At this particular party I decided to go around and ask everyone for a sip of their drink. With my relatives all talking to each other at the same time (as Italians do) nobody noticed that I was asking everyone for a taste of their wine. Each time I made my request the person thought I was “so cute” and gave me a sip from their glass. They found the way my eyes squinted and lips puckered from strong vinegary taste to be “adorable.” This went on until, by about the twelfth person, I started getting a little tipsy and they cut me off.
In the middle of the night I woke up with a terrible headache. Within minutes I was in the bathroom throwing up. That night I developed an anxiety around barfing that I have to this day. Since I was over the toilet and on my knees I made a vow with God that I would never touch alcohol again. I kept this vow until I got married. Nancy had nothing to do with my breaking it. It was just that, by this point, I felt the vow had served its purpose and had now become silly. I still hate wine and think it tastes like vinegar, but a nice beer or cooler on a hot day is sure refreshing. I can only have one though, and with food. Without that I get too lightheaded and I hate that feeling.
I mentioned that Misty got drunk that night as well. Some uncle must have thought it would be funny to pour wine in Misty’s dog dish, though we never found out who did it. Why Misty drank it is another mystery. However it happened, Misty walked into walls and joined me in my night of sickness.
My “no drinking” vow held throughout High School. It was a good vow to keep, especially when the favorite pastime of my school friends was to spend their weekends getting drunk in the bush. I never understood the attraction to this. The stupid things people do when they are drunk. The regrets. The potential addiction. The sickness afterwards. None of it appealed to me. The same went for drugs. I have to be in pretty bad pain to even take a Tylenol.
My only smoking experience happened when I was eight. I was at a friend’s house and his father left his pipe lit and on the table. I picked it up, put it to my mouth and sucked. Gagging. Burning eyes. Tears. A ringing head. I made another vow. I was never going to do that again. There wasn’t anything religious about this conviction. I don’t believe smoking makes one a better or worse Christian. For me it was a matter of intelligence. I just didn’t want to do something so stupid. Why waste money to smell bad, develop a habit and destroy one’s health? Misty never tried smoking. She was too smart for that.
What is your earliest memory of getting sick? What happened?
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I didn't expect to be the first one to post a comment by Wednesday afternoon. I'm not going to post a "I got drunk" story, but thought I'd tell the story of my first taste of alcohol. Growing up my dad only drank an occasional beer on a hot summer's night. His beer of choice was Old Style Pilsner. One day when I was about 8 or 9 I had 2 friends over from church on a Sunday afternoon. Becoming quite bored in the afternoon we thought it might be a great idea to see if we could sneak one of my dad's beers out of the basement where he kept them hidden behind the freezer. I snuck downstairs and retrieved a bottle. None of us had tasted a beer before so we were all pretty excited. Each one of us took a sip and all agreed that this was the worst tasting stuff you could possibly imagine. Nothing tastes worse than luke warm bad beer. We poured the rest of the beer out of my bedroom window and returned the empty bottle to the basement. I don't think my dad noticed that we had taken one, he drank them so rarely.
ReplyDeleteSince then I've come to realize two things:
1. Good beer tastes great
2. No matter how you drink it, Old Style Pilsner is a terrible beer.
Horst
It always takes one person to share a story about this topic before others will too :)
ReplyDeleteAs for my earliest memory of getting sick, it was probably a flu or my allergic reaction to penicillin - body rashes are no fun! I'm thankful that I have very few allergies and haven't had the flu since our family trip to California when I was 14 - there's nothing quite like barfing by the dolphin tank at Sea World.
As for drinking, I have a similar story to Horst, but it was with my Christian girlfriends in our early youth days. We all had a few sips of (warm) beer and all certainly acted quite silly and drunk, which we were NOT. Now, we look back on that incident and laugh about the stupidity of going along with the crowd, showing off and lying about it to one another. I'm embarrassed by it even now, and yet I'm thankful that those friends were generally positive influences who held me accountable in my teen years and prevented any other behaviour like that while I was in high school. I graduated without any further incident in regards to drinking, drugs, or smoking!
I hate barf!!!
DeleteEarly on in our marriage Nancy got car sick and started barfing out her side window. She wanted me to stop so she could finish the job. I refused. I did slow down, stuck my head out my window as far as I could, and kept on driving. There was no way I wanted to catch a wiff of that stuff or we would have both been barfing. Nancy still brings it up as not being compassionate, but I think it was more compassionate than barfing beside her.
Then there is Toby's barfing story from Bethany's mission trip to Cameroon. I'll let him tell it - or you can hunt him down and ask him about it. I think there is even video or pictures - which I have no desire to see.