Week Ten

Are ye ready? Like are ye ready for this post? Cos it certainly ain’t for the faint-hearted. Don’t say I didn’t warn ye!

Don’t worry, you won’t give a flying fuck what happened Monday-Saturday after you read this bad boy.

Sunday 13^th Dec

Oh Jesus. Oh Mary. Oh Holy Saint Joseph. Not even with your powers combined could ye have helped me today. Today is the day where I can honestly say my number one absolute WORST nightmare came true.

By now you have guessed that me nerves do be at me at the best of times. But never more so when it has something to do with bodily functions occurring outside the home. I hate puking. I hate it. But because I spend most of my time doing it because of my dodgy stomach (thank you Nerves) I can just about bear it, but only if it is in the comfort of my own home. As in I can’t even do it in BBB’s bathroom, I always run back into my bathroom to do it in peace. And that’s just puking, need I even mention what could potentially go on down south? Never, ever, ever must a poo take place outside my own home. I mean if I was after eating 47 Weetabix and 3 gallons of OJ I would hold it all day in work, no problem, and then go home and be in and out of the bathroom in 30 seconds. Cos that’s my style.

So with that in mind, let me recount my day. Got up and started working early on the new translation. Texted Siobhan and Gemma about watching the X Factor en masse that night. Gemma couldn’t make it but she text me “Tramore chips about 3?” Oh yeah I says. Lovely jubbly. So we went out and got a chip, shunning Dooley’s for once in my life and instead heading to an ominously empty Massimo’s, or “The Long Hall” as Mammy calls it. I got a cheeseburger and she got chips and onion rings and the like. So we headed down to the prom and sat and ate and watched the waves coming in and soaking the poor children of the knuckle draggers of Waterford who let them stand at the edge unsupervised. It was an absolutely beautiful day, the light was splendiferous.

So then we headed up to Freddie’s and we set about playing the game where you put the 2p in the slot and try and knock other 2ps off the sliding shelf. You know the one! Lads, I love it! If I had every 2p in Freddie’s I’d stand there all night playing it, not a bother on me. But not this night, oh no. Not this fateful night.

I was happily pushing the 2ps through the slot when I got a sudden pain in my stomach that literally took my breath away. It was like someone had stabbed me. I looked around for a bloody dagger, just to be sure, but no, this was really happening. This pain was actually coming from inside me. I went over to Gemma.

“Jesus I have some pain!” I said, clutching my stomach for dramatic effect.

“Come on and we go home” she said but on our way to the car, I had to sit down. Like I literally couldn’t make it. The pain was that unbearable. I was hoping it was some kind of alien fart pain from Mars that would go away if I could muster a fart but no. I knew it was something more untoward. Then suddenly, the realization dawned.

“Oh my God Gemma, I might have to go to a toilet”.

The blood drained from my face.

“Ah grand, there’s one over here,” she said.

Ah grand? Ah grand?? I became hysterical.

“You don’t understand Gemma! You don’t understand!”

Of course she was in the knots at how terror stricken I was, and I would be too, if I hadn’t just gone colour blind from the panic.

So we ventured down to the toilet. Which toilet? I hear you asking. Oh you know, just the disabled toilet next to the amusements. You know, the one they shot Trainspotting in.

Now bear in mind it was about 4 o clock now, so it was dark out. And there was no light in the toilet. So it was literally pitch black in there. And I mean pitch black. I could only imagine what horrors lurked in there.

“Oh God Gemma, I can’t, I can’t!”

I was whimpering, crouched on the ground trying to make the pain go away. Gemma ventured in there and took her phone as a torch to suss out the place.

“Look, it’s grand, just go in” she said.

“I will never…”, but at that moment, I knew I had no choice and I had to peg it in the door. I didn’t have enough strength in my legs to hover so I had to fashion a makeshift AIDS barrier out of toilet paper to put between myself and the seat, all the while wondering how I was going to pay for the years of therapy that would inevitably follow this incident.

And then the storm came.

I didn’t know how long I had been in there. Was it days, weeks, months?? I was fully expecting to emerge having grown a full beard. But it was when I had blocked up the sink with puke that the delicious irony dawned on me. I had caught the vomiting bug that was going around. It had lain dormant inside me for God knows how long, slowly festering to a crescendo before coming to fruition in he disabled toilets in Tramore. For my sins, like.

In the whole time I was in there, there was no window of ten minutes where I possibly could have made it to the car and subsequently home. I just had to ride it out, so to speak, in this tiny dark room. Gemma was outside the door talking me through it.

“Soon you’ll be in your lovely warm bed…”

“Soon? When is soon?! I’ll be dead by then. I’m gonna die in this disabled toilet. I just know I am,” says I, and I was serious. It was so bad I was about to walk into the light like.

Well after the longest couple of hours of my life, I emerged, broken, from the toilet.

“Well, what colour am I?” I said to Gemma, holding the phone under my chin.

“Jesus you’re…you’re glistening!” she said. Nice.

I couldn’t even stand up straight, it was like my muscles had contracted and would only permit me to walk bent over. The pain was unbearable. But I knew it was time to make a break for it. It was now or never.

So I proceeded to do the scrunchback shuffle to the car with Gemma half carrying me. And you can guarantee that everyone who saw us was thinking one of two things. They were either thinking: a) “Look at that poor young wan in the horrors and her friend carrying her home. Tut tut. The youth of today etc.” or b) “Ah will you look at that girl bringing her handicapped sister out for a walk, shur God love her. Isn’t she as good? It must be terrible hard. And she with a bit of a scrunchback as well…”

Made it to the car anyway, “thanks bit of God”, Gemma strapped me in and we were on our way, fully intending to break every speed limit on the way, were it not for the line of cars in front of us being driven by healthy people who don’t know the meaning of terror.

Well the second we pulled up the drive, I was overcome with joy. I still had the gut-wrenching pains but I literally didn’t care. Now I was at home I could piss out my arse and projectile vomit to my heart’s content! Hurrah!! There was nobody home but I ushered Gemma out the door in case she got a touch of leprosy off me and went down to the room and got into bed, literally elated. Pity there is no one home to share in my horror story though.

Of course now, I wasn’t thinking “I can’t believe that just happened to me, I better roll over and try to sleep it off”, oh no. I was thinking “ Who can I ring now that will really understand what just happened to me?” So I rang my sister in law who also shares my toilet concerns. She was satisfactorily horrified. Then for good measure I rang my other two sisters, just to share the terror like. A trouble shared, and all that.

Couldn’t fall asleep cos the pains were really bothering me so I settled for reading Chat magazine, curled up in a ball. In particular, the story entitled “Too Fat for Take That” was riveting.

So there you have it. The worst thing that could possibly ever happen to me actually happened. And I survived. As my friend texted me last night “Everybody’s life is made up of lots of different experiences, good and bad! And the bad ones define mostly who you are”. Whatever the fuck that means.

Right I’m going for a lie down. Shook I am. Until next week folks!

PS I want everyone to know that Gemma Grace is the bestest friend in the whole world and I literally could not have done it without her. Literally, I would have gone over to the dark side like. Thanks Gem, love you!