Today, I am going to tell you about the time I threw up a tampon.

Ok, it wasn’t really a tampon, but it looked just like one.

I was about four months pregnant with Jonas, and since I suffer from severe morning sickness that only fades a bit with lots of drugs and IVs, I was, as usual, puking. Only it wasn’t the usual reversal of the stomach lining that I had grown accustomed too. This time, something got stuck in my esophagus and I couldn’t breathe at all, so I was hunched over the toilet thinking, “Oh my gosh. This is it. This is how I’m gonna die. I’m going to croak suffocating on my own vomit. Dang, that’s gonna look stupid in the obits!” Thinking about the humiliation of dying this way I managed to pull my energy together, pop several blood vessels in my face, and heave what looked exactly like a tampon that one has accidentally dropped into the toilet, into the toilet.

For a long time I just stared at it. These things don’t usually go from down there to the stomach to be barfed into an unsuspecting toilet, and even if they did, I’m pregnant, so it’s been awhile, you know? I look around to see if just maybe a random box of tampons is out and one magically fell into the toilet at the same time that I was vomiting. There’s nothing out.

So I do what any woman who has been barfing ten times a day for three months would do. I stick my hand into the toilet bowl full of puke and retrieve the faux tampon. I cradle it in my hand for a second; it doesn’t feel like a tampon, in fact, it’s kind of squishy, a bit sort of like if you were to leave brie out too long on a warm summer day. I have the sudden jolt of realization that this is, in fact, cheese.

Now, it started out as milk, which I had drunk earlier that day to relieve some heartburn, but apparently, being in my warm body for a few hours it had curdled and started the miraculous transformation from milk to cheese. I squished in around in my hand a bit more and let it squeeze through my fingers. When you think about it, the fact that I can make cheese is actually pretty darn neat.

My grandma used to warn me against drinking milk when I was sick. I don’t remember the exact reason why, something about it curdling inside and making me sicker, but now I know, don’t I? It’s so I don’t asphyxiate on my own vomit and die and end up humiliated on my tombstone forever:

Here Lies Lou;
Choked on Her Own Vomit, Poor Idiot Drank Milk When She Was Sick.