vomit rocket resurrection

Lots of you know my friend, Jimmy, aka the slacker yacker (a story for another time but ironically appropriate for this post).  When Chino moved to Atlanta he brought his car with him, The Vomit Rocket (no connection to the alias, really, completely separate tales - do I sense a pattern here?).

The story goes something like being in college and drunk and a friend puking but unable to get the window down so vomit sprayed the roof, among other things and people.  The worst part of the story is that he lived in Texas so the next day the stench was baked into the car for forever.  And I mean FOREVER.

This is the car we traversed Hotlanta in for a few years - the stench and splotched fabric are so vivid to me that I almost feel like the drunken night is my memory, too.  This is also the air-conditioned-less hunk of shit we took when we moved Jimmy to Baltimore and listened to Pulp Fiction (the movie, not the soundtrack) on a cassette tape in a boom box we had to buy at the outlet store on the way because the stereo was broken.

I think TVM has long since been retired, no longer cruising the Baltimore streets, but Jack paid homage this week when he lost his milk all over himself and the car seat Thursday morning on the way school.

Normally I don't take Jack to school but on this particular day, two days fresh from mocking Pink for getting the banana vomit, I was taken to task.  I heard a cough and then in the rear view mirror I saw the curdled cheese pour out of his mouth, down his chin, and soak into his tee.  The look on his face never changed, a dead expressionless stare through all four massive eruptions.  I watched slack-jawed in disbelief, mostly I guess at his ability not to cry or scream or even seem the least bit interrupted, like he didn't even know it was happening.

Eventually I turned around, got us back home, we bathed and changed him, and started the trip all over again.  We actually made it there this time.

But like Jimmy's story, the worst part may have been that I was late for work now, late for my safety inspection, and had to leave the vomit-soaked car seat in my black hot Jeep all day in Atlanta, hot humid Atlanta.  I left all the windows cracked but when I tell you that I could smell the car as I approached it from 10 feet away I am not lying or even casually exaggerating.