Color Me Disgusted...And Chastened

Last night was my company's Christmas party, held at The Point located at the University of Utah's campus. It's a beautiful place. Dinner was on the 6th floor and it had an amazing view. As I looked out at night, the lights of the town glittered in the distance. I was charmed.

Naturally, I brought a date to the event. Actually, I don't normally bring dates to work parties, I'm sure it's such a bore for them. But I thought that this year I would do it. It was a somewhat formal affair with a fancy place and people were getting dressed up . . . maybe this wasn't the night to go stag. So I asked a friend to join me.

Which he was fine with, until about 3 hours before the party. And then he started to get a little lippy with me, blatantly telling me he did not want to go. I was torn--part of me felt awful. I had just dragged my friend to a party where he didn't know anyone except me and he didn't even want to be there. But the other part of me wanted to say, "Buck up, dude! It's a party! That's it! Four hours of your life and you're done!" I tried placating him with visions of drunk people falling on their heads, but it didn't do the trick. The whole night felt slightly awkward--I was alternating between bouts of irritation and guilt. What a night.

Finally, around 9 o'clock, he suggested we leave. I'll admit, the party hadn't been as thrilling as I was hoping it would be, so I was fine at the prospect of leaving. We grabbed our coats and headed out.

As we were leaving he says, "Remember how I went to the bathroom earlier?"

How could I forget? He was gone for about fifteen minutes. I figured he was making phone calls and trying to form a special ops team to get him out.

"Well, I threw up in there. I'm pretty sick."

My heart fell. This kid had been sick the entire time and I hadn't even noticed it. He'd been more quiet than usual and barely ate anything. I felt like such a jerk for being caught up in my own thoughts not to notice.

We take off. We are at the bottom of the hill when he says, "Can you pull over?"

And then he proceeded to throw up (again) for about five minutes--possibly longer, I lost track--while I sat in the driver's seat. What do you do? I just sat there. There isn't much you can offer a guy who is hanging out of the door of your car and puking his guts out. Luckily, I had a box of Kleenex in my car. I don't know what patron saint ensured that there were Kleenex in my car, but I was surely thankful for that.

So next year . . . I may just go to the work party alone.