Puke-a-Palooza

It was a cold day outside, but inside Buffalo Elementary the hive was buzzing with excitement. Today was the day we got to go to something special in the cafeteria involving tooth care. There were strangers roaming the halls wearing white coats and bringing in boxes. Normally this would have been something that terrified us.

Just a couple years earlier we had been confronted by similar strangers. Only those strangers were there to cause us great pain. It was in the days of mass vaccinations. I remember standing in line with 20 other crying children all waiting our turn to get a big injection gun placed on our arms. It didn’t matter who was cool and who was a dweeb that day. We were all crying comrades in arms (literally) that day. Having a last name ending with the letter “P” meant that I was at the end of the line. So 15 other kids got shot before I did and I had to watch how they wrenched and squealed in pain while my teacher told me it would be O.K. I knew that Mrs. Bauer was behind all this pain and suffering. We were left with scars and bruises that lasted forever. I remember it well. But again, I digress.

This would be a happy day filled with happy children. Mrs. Dornquast escorted us to the cafeteria and we took our place at the tables. Then a nice lady in a white coat held up a giant tooth and showed us all how to brush our teeth. It was all so interesting the way she did it. Then, and this was the most exciting part, they gave us all new toothbrushes and tiny tubes of Colgate. The toothbrushes were still in the wrapper so we knew they had not been used by the class before us. They also handed out little pink pills (which were much better than shots) and two tiny Dixie cups. We wondered what would happen next.

The Purple Cow came along and filled one of our tiny little cups with water. We were then instructed to place a small amount of Colgate on our brushes and brush our teeth as instructed. I did a great job. Then came the mysterious part. We were instructed to chew up the little pills and grind them into our teeth. After a quick swallow we all gave each other a big smile. The magic pink pills released their dye on every place we did not adequately brush. They even brought around a mirror so we could tell where we had failed. Then we brushed again, and pink pilled again. Brush and pill, brush and pill until we had all learned our lesson. Then, to top it all off, the nice lady in white came along and filled our empty cup with a thick, puffy pink medicine we were to gulp down. It tasted a bit like Bazooka Bubble Gum but was a bit “off” in some way.

Back to the class we went and Mrs. Dornquast told us a little more about tooth care. In the middle of history I started to feel a bit queasy but I kept it to myself. We were close to afternoon recess and I wasn’t going to miss out. Then, across the table from me, Keith, my good buddy, looked at me with his ashen-white face and said, “I think I’m going to puke.” That set off something in me that I didn’t like. I replied, “Not if I puke first!” Just as I finished my sentence Keith puked really hard all over the four desks in our little quad shooting some onto my desk. It was good one. Heave-Ho!

This started the most amazing pink puke-a-palooza I have ever witnessed. It is no exaggeration when I say almost every kid in my class barfed up pink puffy puke. It was everywhere and the smell was horrible. We just kept heaving and heaving. It felt so good. And everyone was doing it. There was no holding back. We ran for the doors but Mrs. Dornquast cut us off. She instructed us to puke on the tile or in the garbage cans if we could get to them. She didn’t want anyone puking in the halls causing another chain reaction with passing classes. We were under quarantine. As things settled down the janitor was called in with a giant barrel of that vomit sawdust stuff. We all sat in the hall waiting our turn to clean up in the bathroom. Then more reports came in from other classrooms that had also experienced the puke-a-palooza.

Our mothers were all called and they sent us home. It seems that the fluffy fluoride was the culprit. Because the whole school puked, everyone was given a bit of grace that day and no one ended up on the list of shame. I was now in a fortunate position. I had puked twice in school, but because one was on Mrs. Bauer, and the other was the fluoride clinic, my name was clear.