1. New Beginnings
"One time I threw up red wine in fresh winter snow." —Adam
2. Pure Harmony
"On day eight of the Sandy blackout, we got wasted at the only house with a generator out of desperation and complete boredom. At the end of the night, my boyfriend and my oldest friend simultaneously stood up, ran to the bathroom, and puked together. One in the sink, the other in the toilet. The symmetry was magnificent, like a choreographed dance." —Erin
3. The Love Triangle
"At my first dance, I had said I would go with two different boys (I was 8! I didn't know it was mean and didn't want to hurt the second one's feelings in the moment!), and once I got there, I immediately realized what a mistake I had made. So, instead of dealing with it, I kept dancing and dancing and dancing until I got so dehydrated that I had to run to the fire pit to throw up. Then I went straight back to the dance floor and kept dancing. This was sleep away camp and the only postcard my mom got said 'Went to the dance, threw up. Having a great time.'" —Chelsea
4. A Vision in Magenta
"On my way home from Hoboken one night, I witnessed three people vomiting. The first were your standard garbage-can and train-floor ralphs, but then I caught magenta out of the corner of my eye. It was a girl puking what was probably an ill-advised daiquiri, and I thought to myself, That's the most beautiful vomit I've ever seen." —Kasia
5. Echoes of Royalty
"In college, my friend ate a bunch of red velvet cake before getting very drunk at a bar. I held her hair back as she turned a trash can into a regal, red velvety wonderland. And in a drunken stupor she kept repeating, 'I threw up red velvet cake.' And she sure did." —Joanna
6. Sweet Surrender
"First summer back in Taiwan after frosh year of college, my high school friends were into the pageantry of showing off how much they'd learned to drink. It ended with a girl puking into my left ear while I was carrying her from a club to a cab. The puke wormed into my brain, took over me entirely. I having been living as a puke parasite since." —Kevin
7. The Graceful Hamburglar
"I was newly 21 and in New Orleans to visit my best friend for Voodoo Fest, a music festival that always falls around Halloween. We didn't want to spend money on overpriced festival drinks, so we chugged some gross grape vodka concoctions at her dorm and tracked down a cab to the grounds. The ride was bumpy and I could feel the vodka coming back up, but I didn't want to get out and lose the cab, so I threw up with my hand over my mouth. I spent the rest of the ride nonchalantly spitting bits of purple vomit into the hand and gracefully flicking it out the window. The four other people in the cab had no idea. The beautiful part was that I was dressed as the Hamburglar." —Jen
8. A Fountain of Glory
"When I was in college, I went to my first gay bar ever and they were serving Long Island Iced Tea PITCHERS. Ironically, we got kicked out because one of the girls with us threw up in the bar. But then we got outside. And I turned into a beautiful gay Long Island Iced Tea fountain. I threw up in the cab on the way home and we had to spend the entire ride sitting next to the door handle, full of my glittery gay puke."
—Matt
9. Discovering Joy
"For my friend Colleen's 22nd birthday we celebrated at the Phi Gamma Delta frat house at our school (lol), and she got very very very drunk, and eventually she told me she had to go throw up, and could I come with her because she didn't have any hair binders (or ties or whatever people outside Minnesota call them). So I went in a stall with her and held her hair back and while she was throwing up kind of, or afterward I guess, she was laughing and was so happy still, and then for reasons I could not explain to you she started speaking Parseltongue (I mean, you know, pretended to speak Parseltongue) at me? I don't know — it just brought a lot of joy out of her." —Katie
10. The Vom of Innocence
"Every morning in kindergarten for about half the year, I would stop, stare at the ground, and puke on cue at the same tree because I was nervous about going to school. I was an only child with a stay-at-home mom, and I would get so sad/anxious at the thought of having to leave her and socialize with CHILDREN (I didn't even like them when I was one) that barfing became as much a part of my morning ritual as brushing my hair was. My mom slowly but surely got sick of my newfound 'hobby' and screamed at me one day to stop and then I never did it again." —Emmy
11. A Grandfather's Wish
"My buddy Liam Walsh and I had had a few too many cold ones the night before. He was on leave from the Army, I was home from college, and my pa was driving us to a Red Sox game along with my grandfather (my mother's father), who sat shotgun. My grandfather had been born the year after the Red Sox's last World Series win in 1918, and the Red Sox were everything to him.
The atmosphere in the car was quiet and tense. I don't think Gramps thought I was turning out too well. I was just sitting as still as possible, trying to ignore certain physical realities. No dice. After realizing that I was losing the fight with the waves of nausea that kept crashing over me, I asked my father to pull over. Except we were on the highway, and there was no shoulder.
'Give me your hat,' I whispered to Liam. Before he understood what I'd said, I grabbed the hat off his head. Making eye contact with my dad in the rearview mirror, I proceeded to fill Liam's Red Sox cap to the brim with regurgitated Budweiser. We pulled over at the next exit, and I cleaned myself up at a gas station before we proceeded to the game.
The next year the Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals and won the World Series. My grandfather called me, told me how grateful he was to see his team finally win a championship, but not before making fun of the time I managed to 'fit a six pack into Liam's hat.'" —Isaac
12. A Liquid Sunset
"I once barfed pink because of drinking too much strawberry daiquiri." —Conz
13. The Peaceful Waterfall
"Once at a particularly liquor-fueled party of 'adults' that dissolved into an hours-long game of Spin the Bottle, my friend C ended up lying on the bathroom floor with her head in a shower stall, cold water running over it, for no apparent reason. When our designated driver and his gaggle of passengers (myself included) went to retrieve her from where she lay and take her home, our friend S just curled up next to her and then proceeded to quietly vomit into C's long, flowing brown hair. The beautiful part was that since the shower was already on, cleanup was a breeze and everyone thought it was hilarious and dissolved into giggles." —Summer
14. The Circle of Life
"One time I drank a plastic jack-o'-lantern full of vodka and orange juice. Then I projectile-vomited a plastic jack-o'-lantern full of vodka and orange juice. The end."
—Julie
15. The Gorgeous Azure Stream
"When I graduated college my parents threw me a party at my uncle's nightclub. Someone bought me an Adios Motherfucker as my first drink, which, if you don't know, is basically a Long Island Iced Tea with blue curaçao instead of cola. Anyway, every time I was almost done with one, someone would ask what I was drinking, I'd tell them, then they would buy me another one. This happened about six times. Later, I headed to the men's room to make myself vomit in the hopes to feel better. It didn't. All I did was spew a gorgeous azure stream of alcoholic carnage over my new suit and then pass out next to the vomit-splattered toilet. Needless to say, the drink lived up to its name." —Justin
16. Mysterious Laughter
"Once in college I had Joose (which was like the Four Loko knockoff) and I didn't actually realize how alcoholic it was so I drank the whole can really fast and later puked highlighter-yellow vom. I also laughed a lot while it happened and felt weird about it in the morning." —Julia
17. An Explosion to Remember
"One time I demolished a bottle of Pernod at my then-girlfriend's place. After eating fish & chips. The subsequent vomit explosion completely blocked their drain and flooded their backyard with a Pernod-scented puke gloop. Clearing the blockage next morning with only pink rubber gloves to protect me was the worst hangover experience of my life. Needless to say, I have never drunk Pernod again." —Simon
18. The Sidewalk Surprise
"I once watched a person vomit outside a bar on the sidewalk. A group of us then stood around the pile and when people would try to walk through us, we'd separate and watch/yell/make a commotion as they stepped in it. This went on for entirely too long. We're terrible people." —Austin
19. Poignant Whispers
"My friend threw up on the PATH train and then whispered, 'We're on the path to greatness.'" —Keely