“

The last time I threw up, it was 1978. I was in the 
back of my buddy’s pick up truck and I had been 
drinking Seagrams 7 and 7up — we used to call 

those 7 and 7s. Anyway, I had eaten Cheetos before, so 
you can imagine what it looked like.”- My Dad

Almost any time someone in my family talks about 

throwing up, gin or the 1970s, my dad tells the story 
of the last time he puked. If it wasn’t so disgusting, it 
would almost be cute. 

I remember thinking about that story hunched over 

one of those robotic airplane toilets, about 35 thousand 
feet above rural Pennsylvania . I was projectile vomit-
ing the last of the coffee and Odwalla superfood that had 
been percolating in my stomach. My own puke-absti-
nence streak was over. 

I’d been going strong for 8 years until The Airplane 

Fiasco, though it pales in comparison to my dad’s 39-and-
counting streak.Still, it’s respectable in its own right.

I’ll back up. 
 I woke up the day after my grandfather’s funeral and 

my stomach felt like it was upside down. I am terrified of 
flying, so I filed my morning stomach pains under “anxi-
ety induced symptoms” and did my best to forget them. 
Still queasy when we got to the airport, I purchased a 
black coffee and an Odwalla Superfood, which, as you 
already know, would eventually come back to haunt me, 
and anyone between row 18 to 25 on my flight.

Among a set of mild to severe phobias and anxiety dis-

orders I have, Emethophobia — the fear of throwing up 
— is one of them. I’ve been pathologically afraid of vom-
iting for as long as I can remember. 

Throwing up is fucking crazy. I’m sorta surprised 

more people aren’t terrified of it. I mean come on, by the 
end, somehow, the inside of your body is on the outside 
of your body. Like what if humans had this weird kind 
of hiccup or cough that temporarily popped our eye-
balls out, and we had to plug them back in whenever this 
annoying and uncomfortable eye-jaculation happened. 
Its different, but not that different.

In truth though, Emetophobia is relatively uncom-

mon. According to Fear Of.net, it’s the 40th most com-
mon phobia, behind Triskaidekaphobia, which is the 
fear of the number 13, and Gephyrophobia, the fear of 
bridges.

I think someone without capital “A” anxiety could 

still relatively easily conceptualize why someone might 
have Emetophobia: Throwing up is uncomfortable. 
Being afraid of something really uncomfortable seems 
rational. But my Emetophobia is divorced from the actu-
al physical discomfort of throwing up, and more about 
my obsessive need to feel at least marginally in control 
of my own body. 

When you throw up, something which 99% of your life 

is under your control — your stomach — rebels against 
you. Emetophobia is not really about throwing up for me. 
It’s about everything else that could or might happen. If 

3B
Wednesday, Janurary 11, 2017 / The Statement 

The Golden State Worrier : The Last Time I Threw 
Up Was 1978 B Y H A R R Y K R I S N K Y, DA I LY A R T S W R I T E R

COVER DESIGN BY CLAIRE ABDO AND KATIE SPAK

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE PHILLIPS

I can wake up one day with my stomach turned inside 
out, why can’t I wake up one day with a missing eye, or 
a tumor behind my ear, or a loved one dead? Phobias are 
fueled by “what if’s” that worm their way into the con-
sciousness. What if it never ends, what if it gets worse, 
what if I caused it? What if I never stop throwing up and 
end up like that snapchat filter with the rainbows com-
ing out of my mouth forever except it won’t be rainbows 
or a snapchat filter it will be vomit and my real life?

I boarded the plane, and got settled next to a woman 

and her tweenage daughter. I have a window seat, and 
would have traded my kidney for a middle seat just so I’d 
have one less set of legs to bypass. The pilot informed us 
that, because of irregular wind patterns, my normally 5 
and half hour flight from Boston to San Francisco would 
be 6 hours and 15 minutes. Jesus.

We start to take off. I’m releasing enough Fight or 

Flight juices that maybe, with the right coaching, I could 
have moved things with my brain à la El from Stranger 
Things. The What Ifs are shooting out, each one increas-
ingly absurd, but convincing at the same time. It strikes 
me now how accurate the word “pang” is here. What if 
I throw up, what if I die, what if I throw up my left lung 
somehow, and die? What if I throw up Odwalla super-
food and coffee in this aisle right now, 15 seconds into a 6 
hour flight, and then die? I’m gonna throw up. The plane 
is going down. I’m definitely going to throw up. 

 Then suddenly, calm.
“May I go to the bathroom” I asked the mother-daugh-

ter combo to the right of me. The mother looked at me, 
then at the fluorescent seatbelt sign and shrugged.

“Umm, no.”
“Ok.” 
In some combination of resentment and delirium, I 

stood up and puked over both of them, into the aisle — 
gloriously and triumphantly — and then asked if I could 
please please please use the restroom. Stunned, she let 
me by. I power walked to the bathroom aware that I had 
made very few friends so far on this flight.

I puked a few more times, thought about my dad, apol-

ogized to the family I puked over — and on — and some-
how made it back to San Francisco.

I don’t really know where that wave of calm came 

from, but it’s the key to beating Phobias.

The mental and physical energy I spend worrying 

about puking is so much more unpleasant than the actual 
puking, even if it is a strange combination of coffee and 
green smoothie on an airplane.

The only moral of The Airplane Fiasco I can see: Don’t 

worry about things that are out of your control, which is 
a lesson I already vaguely and intellectually understood, 
and rarely adhere to in practice.

I’m still afraid of puking, but I’d estimate I’m 30% less 

afraid of puking than I was prior to the flight, and 30% 
of a diagnosed pathological fear of vomiting is nothing to 
scoff at. And If I don’t puke until 2056, I’ll even a shot at 
beating my Dad’s record. But I’m gonna try not to worry 
about it.