Puke

Ran into the eating-disorder woman for the second time today. I still don't know who she is. All I know is that she's from the social welfares department next to our office. She seems to only appear when I'm busy taking care of my own business and cannot come out of the bathroom stall in time to get a glimpse of her. Both times I was greeted with belching noises followed by the sound of her lunch moving in reverse into the toilet bowl, accompanied by the lingering odor of her stomach acid.

I can still remember bawling uncontrollably as a kid every time I vomited from a stomach virus. I cried because I felt sorry for myself, because I knew I didn't deserve to feel as nasty as it did to have acidic content gush upward in the esophagus. As a grownup, I don't get stomach virus as often as I get drunk. It's the same unpleasant feeling of having to regurgitate a meal that makes everyone say "I'm never drinking again", though most of everyone easily caves the next time around.I was the star of a memorable puking episode that took place in a drinking buddy's basement. I knew I had to puke but I could never get to the bathroom in time. Took me well over half the night to maneuver my drunken body over what seemed like 15km from the living room to the bathroom. Nobody was willing to pause their drinking long enough to offer any help, but the owner of the house did eventually provide me with a plastic bag, a roll of paper towels and a bottle of carpet cleaner. I ended up leaving three giant orange stains on her beige carpet anyway. What can I say, I was too drunk to aim for the inside of the bag, and red wine stains are a bitch to clean even for a sober person. The stains were really orange though, because of the Cheetos I'd been snacking on with the drinks, and the odor of its half-digested form made everyone swear off cheese forever. I'm not proud of this story (except when I take into account that the little bitch stole my boyfriend a couple months later).

What I don’t get is why anyone past the age of 23 would put themselves through this kind of agony when they have the option not to. And it’s not even like she gets to enjoy the high from the alcohol. Sure she gets the high from tasting the food, but for me, satisfaction from eating includes keeping it down. From what I hear, this woman is middle aged and average looking. She works for the social welfares department, which is about the furthest thing to modeling. There isn't any obvious reason for her to be 90lbs. Recalling the first time I’d heard a colleague’s complaint about the smell of puke in the bathroom, this woman must’ve been belching like this for at least two years. Either she's down to her skeleton by now or she's been doing it wrong all this time. I feel sorry for her. I wanted to talk to her, mostly because I believe she'd have an interesting story to tell. I feel like she and I would have some kind of a connection, since I’m having a similar problem with my eating habits, just to the opposite extreme.