When I was younger, I collected baseball cards, and whenever I was in a place other than Mechanicsburg, I always sought out new baseball card stores to visit.

My grandmother lives in Lancaster, PA, and on one occasion when I couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old, my family and I stopped by her place for a visit.  For some reason—maybe it was a holiday or something—many of my relatives were also visiting my grandparents that afternoon.  The group of us was so large, I remember, that we had to eat in the basement instead of the dining room.

Now, my grandmother is an excellent cook.  She was born in southern Italy, and to this day, her gnocchi is my favorite food.  As a youngster, I had a sensitive stomach, but I had never had an adverse reaction to my grandmother’s food, though I usually only ate her pasta and not the cooked meats.  On this occasion, however, I decided to eat some kind of beef she had made.  It was delicious, and I remember that it had slivers of what I think were grilled onions in it, which I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to eat or not, but I ate anyway.

After our big mid-day meal, I talked my Dad into taking me to a nearby baseball card store.  Before we left my grandmother’s house, I remember two things: My Dad’s younger cousins were fighting over who got to use their new BB gun first, and my stomach had begun to bother me.

My Dad and I pulled up to the baseball card store and went inside.

“Dad,” I said, “my stomach hurts.”

I don’t remember what my Dad said to this, but he probably wasn’t too concerned because complaints about my stomach were typical.

At one point, while I was standing next to my Dad, I pulled on his sleeve—he was talking to the salesman about some aluminum trashcans emblazoned with the Phillies’ logo I think—and told him again that my stomach really hurt.  He told me to be quiet.  Part of my memory says that he even went so far as to put his hand in front of my mouth to get me to shush.  In any case, I remember with great clarity what happened next: I barfed all over the floor.

Now I had everyone’s attention.  My Dad told me to go outside while the salesman told his co-worker to get a vacuum.

I went outside by the sidewalk and continued to barf.  I threw up all over some leafy plants.  I threw up on my shoes as well.  My barf was pink in color and I saw the bits of grilled unions in there.  I threw up with such force that the vomit came out of my nose and my mouth simultaneously.  I have never thrown up so forcefully in my life.  A mother and her two kids walked by, aghast.  They quickened their pace away from me, the human barf machine.

Eventually, I stopped throwing up and went back inside the store.  I remember that I purchased an old Willie Stargell card and went home, my Dad and I thoroughly embarrassed I’m sure.

So, I did manage to get a baseball card out of the whole ordeal, but even that satisfaction wouldn’t last, as when I got back to Mechanicsburg, I somehow managed to accidentally sit on the baseball card and it got a big crease in it, thus rendering it worthless.  The End.