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Anyone
wanna share your own "Barf bag story"?
Just mail
me!
It was
about 1968. I was third man in the
cockpit on an Eastern Airlines Lockheed
1011 (2nd officer). David was pilot and Charles was 1st officer(copilot).
Diana was a new (just graduated) stewardess (cabin attendant). It was an
early morning flight from St. Louis to some East Coast city I can't recall,
probably New York or Boston.
Once we
were in the air, David picked up the public announcing handset and announced
"Cabin attendant to the cockpit, please." Diana showed up and David said
"The 1st officer is not feeling well, would you please bring us a sick
bag." She left, and returned with a bag. David said thank you, and she
returned to the passenger cabin.
David took
the bag and poured into it the contents of a can of Campbell's concentrated
vegetable soup, which he had opened with the can opener on his pocket knife.
A few minutes later, he again called for the cabin attendant. Diana arrived,
and he gave her the full bag and said "Please dispose of this." She took the
bag and began to leave. She was a step or two out of the cockpit when David
said "Wait a minute, bring that back."
She brought
the bag back, and David took it, opened it and looked inside. Then he said "
Boy, this looks pretty good" and dipped his hand into the bag, pulled out
some of the contents and ate it. Diana then barfed big time, but since she
had not brought a bag for herself, she barfed all over David and Charles.
There is a
moral here, but I don't know what it is.
Rob
From Kevin's blog:
http://fastfictions.blogspot.com/
What would Jesus do (if he were the Buddha on a
barf bag)?
The interior of the plane shakes and stomachs
tense as flight 142 makes its final descent but Martin Barnstone continues
to talk his fellow passenger's ear off.
"The largest collection of airplane sickness
bags is... in the thousands. Can you believe that ? Some guy's got all these
barf bags in his home. That must trigger some kind of gag reflex. I mean
seeing all those barf bags must make you want to throw up yourself. Imagine
trying to have dinner at Mr Barf Bag's place. I wouldn't be able to digest
my food properly. I don't think anyone would including Mr Barf Bag himself.
He must have digestive problems. So in the end he does need those barf bags
but he can't throw up in them because they make up a treasured collection.
What a guy !! " Martin Barnstone stares at his new friend hoping that he'll
understand the import of what's just come out of his mouth.
The plane continues to shake up bellies,
bladders and breasts.
On the screen for all to see is the pilot's
perspective. A camera at the nose of the plane shows that land is fast
approaching. There is nothing to fear but fellow passengers and lost
luggage. A bald-eagle suddenly explodes across the camera and the monitor
switches to a green map of the plane's flight.
Martin Barnstone's new friend passes out from an
overload of aerial death and talk of barf bags. Martin Barnstone screams.
Now sitting across from all this, what would you
do ? What would Jesus do ? What would the Buddha do ? What would the new
Pope do ? What would Oprah do ? What would a venture capitalist do ? What
would a terrorist do ? What would a duck do ? What would a punch-line do ?
That's correct: they would all breathe through
their nose.
Kevin Spenst
http://kevinspenst.com
A few years
ago, I was flying from Bellingham WA to Dallas TX. The first leg of my trip
was a little puddle jumper Dash 8 from Bellingham to Seattle, a quick 40
minutes with a head wind. On a typical Pacific Northwest stormy, windy,
rainy November morning my traveling companion and I boarded a full plane,
took our seats in the back row, and were a bit surprised when the pilot
stepped out of the cockpit to address the cabin. "Buckle down and hold on,"
she said, "or deplane now." We took off and spent the next half hour being
bounced and bucked in every possible direction. I had one hand braced on the
ceiling, the other hand braced on the sidewall, and was wondering if it
could possibly get any worse, when the cabin became filled with the sounds
and smells of every passenger retching into their barf bags. I fought as
hard as I could to keep my breakfast down, and was just beginning to see the
light at the end of the tunnel when we mercifully began our descent into
Seattle. I was mentally congratulating myself for remaining composed when my
traveling companion (who had a stomach of steel) announced that on landing
in Seattle, she was going to grab herself a big steaming bowl of CLAM
CHOWDER for a snack. The thought of clam chowder, paired with the sounds and
smells of twenty-some sick cabin-mates, plus the still bucking Dash 8, all
did me in. I started throwing up and couldn't stop. I spent the next legs of
my trip (Seattle to Denver and Denver to Dallas) retching non-stop. When I
filled every barf bag in the vicinity on the 747 from Denver to Dallas
(having been seated in the center seat of the center aisle, could it be any
worse???), passengers from the rows in front of and behind me began passing
them in from all directions. I don't remember those barf bags in
detail...only that I was grateful they were there when I needed them...and
oh, how I needed them!
Amber Hackney
Several
years ago, I was on a flight to Hawaii. Since this is not a short flight,
boredom quickly set in and I began rummaging around in the seat pocket. This
turned up the barf bag. At one time or another, someone had apparently been
feeling sick and needed to hold it in. Their solution? Write lines! "I will
not barf" was written about 20 times on it. As the barf bag was empty, this
seemed to suggest that they had succeeded. I now carry on their tradition
with a paragraph giving proper instructions for the use of barf bags that
include every synonym available.
On a
slightly different note, I once saw a "RARE 60's BRITISH AIRWAYS BARFBAG" on
eBay. What was extraordinary was that
1) People were bidding on it
2) There was a reserve
3) The current price (reserve not yet met) was $40!
As if this were not enough, the seller suggested (I am not making any of
this up) that it would "Make a great Christmas gift!"
Aaron
Dodson
One time
when me and my dad were flying to California I was looking for my seat and
when I saw who I was sitting next to it was WEE~MAN (jackass the movie).
Well we got to talking and were watching a movie and we were almost there so
I asked for his autograph. Then I realized I had no paper so he picked up a
barf bag and signed it saying keep on skating and being a jackass. I thought
it was pretty sweat.
Zandgirl@aol.com
Probably
not an unusual story from flight attendants, but back in the 1960's when I
was flying for New Zealand's national airline crewing in DC3's, Viscounts
and Friendships, one particular airport was noted for its bad crosswinds
which played havoc with passengers internal combustion! There used to be a
record count of 'barf bags' which were used on a flight and my best total
was 28!
The worst,
absolute worst, experience was retrieving a passengers false teeth from a
well used bag. There was a technique for doing this - first locate the teeth
by feeling the outside of the bag and then sort of squeezing it up through
the top opening and into the hand basin!!!!!
From G
Petersen, New Zealand
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My 8th
grade p.e. coach gave me an autographed barf bag. He told me this story,
he was on a flight from California and he was getting ready to get off
the plane when he saw Jonathan Davis (from Korn) and he knew how much I
liked Korn and decided to get his autograph for me. But he didn't have
any paper so he got him to sign the barf bag. What sucks though is my
P.e. teacher always thought my name is Krysten.. It says Peace Krysten
than a happy face and then Korn.
From
Christine, Phoenix, Az |
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Actually, this
story is about how the lack of a barf bag when one was desperately needed
lead me to find your site...
I was doing
an internet seach for "air sickness bags" because I wanted to buy some to
put in my car. Never would have thought of doing so, that is, until I got
sick last week while driving and was unable to stop or I would have been
rear ended. Just think, if they made them for cars the your collection would
grow by leaps and bounds!
~A (safe and
sane) driver in Los Angeles who is looking to buy some bags!
Excellent site -
I got a little story that might amuse your punters:
During my years at law school back in the mid 80's
here in Copenhagen, I had all sorts of odd jobs. One of the most lucrative
ones was acting as a guinea pig at the August Krogh Institute participating
in all sorts of physical experiments - the more discomfort, the higher the
pay...
Anyway - NASA was cooperating with the European Space
Agency on different research projects, and "Dansk Rumforskningslaboratorium"
was a subdivision of ESA. And they conducted several experiments I
participated in - usually it was just lying on a bed or sitting submerged in
a water tank (simulated weightlessness) and peeing once every hour in a
plastic bottle to determine... something about certain hormone levels
(remember, I was a law student!).
Since I was such a trusted and hard working lab rat,
they offered me a deluxe experiment: REAL weightlessness in a large Air
force Lockheed jet, along with three other guys and a couple of scientists.
Of course I volunteered - being able to brag about having been really
weightless seemed an interesting conversation topic and would surely improve
my chances with the law school babes who thought I was just a book worm...
The day arrived - from the early morning on they
hooked me up to different machinery to monitor pulse, brain activity and to
draw blood during the flight.
The airplane was flying in a serial parabolic pattern:
Going up, you were exposed to several G's. And during the descent, you were
absolutely weighless for abt. 30-45 seconds.
Of course the air force top guns flying the plane had
a lot of experience in doing similar maneuvers, and for them it was pretty
much just another day at the office. But for us lab rats and scientists, it
was a different story. When your body very suddenly gets hit by several G's
and just as suddenly is weightless, it has a predictable effect on your well
being, and the torque applied REALLY affects your stomach content. So all of
us just threw up all over the place - and even though they had barf bags on
board (unfortunately I forgot to secure any for your fine collection!), we
didn't always hit the target.
And from personal experience I must say that
weightless barf is every bit as disgusting as the earthbound stuff. But you
get the added excitement of watching the stomach content of one of your
fellow semi-astronauts floating around in the cabin - and abruptly landing
all over the place when gravity suddenly kicked in. I remember getting a lot
of it in my lap, and clearly not recognizing the stuff as anything I
digested this morning. Took the nausea level up one notch, as we headed into
yet another parabolic curve...
I also remember those grinning pilots afterwards - and
those smug glances they exchanged as they watched us tuck in at the morning
buffet...
So - my advice to future space tourists is: Skip
breakfast, buckle up, don't look into the Sun - and steal those rocket barf
bags, 'cause one day they'll be collectors items!
Many regards,
Morten Iversen
Copenhagen, Denmark
I don't have a bag to offer you, just a true
story.
In 1970, my husband was doing geological
research in the Florida Keys. We had to do some aerial photography, so he
contracted with a small airline in Marathon, FL, to take us up in a six-seater.
The pilot, a very fat man, had not bathed in recent weeks, and he had been
smoking cigars. The cabin got to about 120 degrees, and we were banking
for better shots. And I was running an old, clunky video camera
All I had eaten for breakfast were two
slices of toast and two small sausages, washed down with coffee.
Up it came. I used the airsick bag, which
was nothing more than a clear plastic baggie tucked in a pocket on the
rear of the front seat. I had no choice but to hold it until we landed,
which was still a couple of islands away. Needless to say, our moving
pictures ended about that time.
Once on the ground, my only option was to
carry the bag into the terminal and dispose of it myself. And yes, there
were people sitting in the waiting room.
Still, the experience didn't make me want
to collect more presentable bags. Indeed, it made me vow never to use one
again, thereby eliminating tiny planes from my travel itineraries.
But your website is a riot. And I've sent
it to one of my editors, and a couple of friends.
Best,
Laura H. McBride
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