I’m about to tell you a story. It’s a throwing up story, so you are officially forewarned.

Once a group of high school students including myself were going up to the hills to camp. On the way, we decided to stop at a popular restaurant that I may or may not have worked at at some point in my life. Y’know, one of those places that has one of those catchy jingles about baby back ribs (which oddly enough, I cannot find an original video of anywhere in internet land). I, being the well-prepared forward thinker that I am, already ate before we went to the restaurant, so I opted to order just a soda. Then I noticed the price. $1.29?!?! For a soda?!?!  For a substance I knew to be no more than mere water and sugar?!?! Outrage!!! It was then that my moral indignation took over, and I decided it was my obligation as an American, to get my money’s worth of soda.

The restaurant, while charging a ludicrous amount for sugar-water, offered free refills. You can see where this is going…

17 glasses of soda later, we were in the car driving up into the mountains. On a curvy, winding road. 17 sodas…windy road… Yeah. I started feeling sick about 30 minutes up the mountain. I rolled down the window to get some air. It was a good thing I did. The next thing I knew, there was a cascade of Sprite flowing from the back seat, out the window, and onto the road behind us. The other car in our caravan stared with utter amazement.

I scurried out of the car and stood by the side of the road where liquid soda spewed from my innards like a waterfall down the mountain. I stood for a good 5 minutes straight, blown away by how my stomach was behaving like a water pump, shooting soda out of my mouth in a constant horizontal stream. Honestly, it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever been a witness to.

When it was all over, I returned to the car and my newfound celebrity status, and we continued to our camp. I was however…disappointed that I had at this point, wasted $1.29.