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There are, of course, myriad ways our human bodies surprise us, humiliate us and outright betray us.
We hear about crazy tales of crisis-driven superhuman strength all the time, and who among us hasn't found ourselves suddenly racing for the bathroom out of absolutely nowhere...and maybe not making it.
Truly, our bodies are nightmares that will shiv us in the figurative ribs and destroy our dignity at every turn. But is there anything worse than being in public and just launching the contents of your stomach out into the room with no warning and no control? Any shame greater, any humiliation more burning hot?
Turns out a Redditor recently discovered the answer is very much YES THERE IS, and it is: puking directly onto a chef's grill in front of other patrons at one of those Japanese show-off restaurants.
Redditor u/JackieeFriday posted her story in Reddit's "Today I F**ked Up" (TIFU) subreddit, which the site bills as "a community for the dumba** in all of us." As of this writing, it boasts some 15.1 million "f**k ups" and, well, safe to say u/JackieeFriday's is one of the all-time worst.
The story is titled, "TIFU by puking on a stove/grill in a Japanese performance restaurant," and, as u/JackieeFriday puts it:
"The title is as bad as it sounds, and I think my life is ruined..."
And, well... it's hard to argue with that.
See, u/JackieeFriday wasn't feeling all that well when her family decided to go to Kabuki, one of those traditional Japanese Teppanyaki restaurants--you know, where you all sit around a communal grill with other patrons and the chef does tricks with the food and the knives and you ooh and ahh and usually there's some kid celebrating her eighth birthday or whatever. Just a normal night out.
So she soldiered on, like you do. But then...
"When we got in there I immediately felt sick. All the cheering at the chef performers and the overwhelming smell of fish."
And she was really hanging in there like a champ! Until–for some unknown reason, as is usual with puke–the scallops hit the grill.
"I don't know why but when they put the scallops on the stove, there it came, the puke. I started feeling hot and saliva filled my mouth, I then said something reluctantly to my family members like "uhh I'm not feel- there it came."
"As I was trying to talk I clenched my fists and the thought of scallops couldn't leave my head, and then mid sentence, puke just goes out as I leaned against my chair."
Oh God oh God oh God there's nothing worse than when you're JUST TRYING TO ALERT PEOPLE and your body is like:
There is no greater cruelty in the human condition. Anyway, naturally what happened next was basically pandemonium.
"Oh sh*t oh f**k oh god, it took me a second to realize what happened but when I did, I looked up and everyone was saying something and backed away from the table. The chef was yelling something in Japanese to his coworkers..."
Extremely, wildly gross pandemonium.
"...the most horrid smell filled the air. It was a smell I can't even explain. Almost like a mix of puke and diesel."
So how did this all end? The only sensible way, u/JackieeFriday assumes.
"After that I'm sure they just burned the place down..."
A harrowing tale, to be sure! And, naturally, u/JackieeFriday's fellow Redditors had plenty of thoughts.
"I often don't truly mean it when I say it, but I'll make a special exception for you: You done f**ked up.
I can already imagine the smell... By the gods, no..." --u/DolfK
"I can't even imagine what cooking puke smells like." --u/secretreddname
"You know those embarrassing situations that pop into your mind right before you're about to fall asleep? Yeah, this is going to be one of them." –u/DRUNKEN_MONKEY
"You know how they say no one but you remembers those situations after a while? This is not one of them" -- u/slightlyspecial
"This is one they make you relive over and over in hell" –u/Vectorman1989
As well as some equally harrowing personal puke stories.
"I imagine it to be something like the time when I, at 13 years old, had a stomach bug and unexpectedly puked against the dorm wall from my top bunk... from where it ran down the wall and onto/into an electric socket, where it started sizzling..."
"Of course, I didn't care much at the time, but soon enough I want the only one incapacitated by extreme nausea... heh." –u/TheAlmightyProo
"I once threw up on a group of 3 ladies in a bar (on the table, they got splattered a little). I then proceeded to throw money at them, and I'm talking coins here, while begging them for forgiveness."
"I'm just glad I was extremely drunk and my memory of it is hazy. That's not a memory I want haunting my sleep." –u/Salohacin
And, of course, there were jokes!
"KaPuki™" –u/nutbusterX
"Sorry for the inconvenience but Kapuki has been closed due to health violation" –u/JackieeFriday
"Teppan-yucky." –u/3rdDownJump
So what is the moral of this story? Listen to your body, sure. But also if you puke in public it's probably best to just Molotov cocktail the place and hide in the house for the rest of your life, haunted by the scent of your cooking barf.
Sorry, those are just the rules!