The Bile High Club – New Lows in Flying High. Only Parents Need Apply


Five hours in, I was feeling pretty chuffed. We’d broken the back of this flight. Only a paltry two hours to go, and the big two were still engrossed in Angry Birds while the baby and I were happily romping in the back. It was dark, it was quiet, and the meanies in the seats in front of us couldn’t glare, tut or throw themselves back in their seats in protest at the honestly minuscule rumpus behind them. The baby was crawling this way and that and having a great time, when someone came back to use the loo so I scooped him up out of harm’s way. 

Joining The Bile-High Club

Or so I thought. Suddenly, he gave a great heave and was vastly sick into my fingers. This is the third time in two months that I’ve had a really noteworthy puking episode on my hands. Which brings me to believe there must actually be a God of Vom, who sees my posts as acts of hubris, when his elvish minions, eternally  clutching their stomachs, hand them to him on his Apple Yak as he sits in his den of insickquity. “Right”, he must think, “you thought that was bad. Here, try it at 39,000 feet! Not a bottle of Dettol nor shower in sight!”

I have to say, it felt strangely pleasant, like a sort of hot fudge sundae oozing through my fingers. But I couldn’t pause to enjoy the sensation, more tummy turbulence was on its way. I burst into the loo – difficult with my slippy paws and dangling baby – to allow the poor tot to get it all out. He did so, and was then immediately chipper, in the amazing way they always are when little. I began to survey the fallout. 

Never has an aeroplane toilet seemed so tiny as when trying to cleanse all its surfaces while attempting to stop a baby from touching any of them. The delightful mixture of Ella’s organic pouch, the purple pruney one, and airline bread roll was all over the seat and inside of the loo, the floor, the wall, the sink, both my beloved Converse, my jeans and my arms. And, of course, my darling source was absolutely covered. I hate waste – I take holey socks to textile recycling rather than chuck them – but I just had to throw away his top. I would have been there for hours de-chunking it with the aeroplane tap, which is both weak and super-spray-y. Ironically enough, I had joked to my husband only a few minutes before about my bold preparation: “I didn’t even pack spare clothes for the baby”. The Vom God must have heard that and rubbed his hands together with glee.

My Baby the Biohazard

How I wanted to summon my husband to help, but you don’t really want to alert a whole flight to the fact that there’s a tummy time-bomb on board, do you? It was my guilty secret, and I covered my tracks pretty well. The contamination zone was pretty refined by the time I told the steward. Under cover of darkness, I’d wiped it off the life raft bit by the window and all that was left was a pool on the carpet in the corner. The air steward  was a true angel of the skies. “I’ve seen a lot worse in 20 years of flying,” he told me as he snapped on his rubber gloves and unpacked his special “sick kit” (something that, even in my distress, I noted as something I need to replicate in my own home). As is so often the way, it was him being so nice that finally brought me to shed the tears I’d been holding back for the past half hour.

Luckily, our baby was not sick again, and as we finally touched down, I felt like I’d earned my holiday. Now I’m just trying not to think about the flight back.

Related post
Cleaning Up Chunks – A Mother’s Glory

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5 Comments

  • I’m not sure why I read that while eating dinner 🙂 Poor you and poor baba, hope this unfortunate event was followed by a fabulous holiday and an easy journey home x

  • Jenny says:

    Oh bless you Jess I have been there so many times its not funny but it’s funny. Does that even make sense. I can’t tell you how many of my children’s clothes are in the mini flight bathrooms of the British Airways airplanes. I hate to think the like piles of vom we have left on the carpet and the smell that we caused a few times. It’s always the times where I didn’t prepare and bring extra clothes or I have ran down to five wipes left. That’s what makes us stronger. You were so good to not cry to the very end and definitely earned that holiday. Hope you enjoyed.
    Jenny recently posted…A new kitchen floorMy Profile

  • Oh dear, the vom gods are truly awful. At work the vom gods rubbed their hands with glee when I had morning sickness myself. It was like they sat there thinking “hmm how can we make her feel worse? I know. That woman will puke on her!”
    Not looking forward to their contribution in childhood!
    Mumsy Midwife recently posted…#wickedwednesdays linkyMy Profile

  • Hot fudge sundae will never seem the same again…..it’s crazy how immune you can become to the sort of gag inducing bodily fluids you used to run a mile from…. x

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