By Vithusan Jegatheesan

**A small caution that this story contains scenes of vomiting. If you’re emetophobic or want to eat food in peace, you might want to avoid reading this story.**

Anticipation. It was building up in each grade 11, like a pot of boiling water. It was mid-April, and the RSGC-planned Outdoor Ed trip to Strathcona Park Lodge was all anyone could think of. Physics ISP? That can wait until we come back. Study for the Functions test? Just look over the notes a couple of times, and we’ll be fine. Prepare for AP exams? There are still a couple of weeks to cram after we come back. Everyone was eagerly counting down the days, our excitement mounting with each tick of the clock. Finally, it was April 17.

While most students were snoring in bed and the sun was on the other side of the world, I was up and about, eyes groggy, dragging my feet at 4:45 am to get to Toronto Pearson International Airport on time for the 6:00 am meeting. Surviving on a bagel and a cup of coffee, we all met up, waiting for our 8:30 flight to take off. Of course, in typical Pearson fashion, our flight got delayed. When we finally did leave, we had to endure the 5-hour flight to Vancouver (although Bullet Train was a surprisingly good movie that I watched). When we landed in Vancouver, we were told by the teachers we had about an hour or two to eat lunch before we had to get on our second flight. This is where the first real problem occurred. Food. We barely had some before boarding in Toronto, and basically none at all on the plane (except for a couple of drinks). That meant we were famished. Of course, anyone who has any travel experience would advise eating lightly before going on flights. But the combination of hunger and the naive thought of a 10 – 15 minute flight said otherwise. A crowd of Georgians swarmed this burger place in the airport. The three staff workers probably thought, “Oh my god, that’s a lot of guys!” while simultaneously thinking, “OH MY GOD, THAT’S A LOT OF GUYS!” We were wolfing down our burgers, devouring chicken, and gulping down milkshakes like it was Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, with not a care in the world. Then, it was time.

We boarded the plane, a Boeing 737 Max 8. As we later learned, it was the first (and largest) of its kind to make the seemingly short flight from Vancouver to Nanaimo. The departure was fine, and the view of the Rockies was lovely. Being in British Columbia, however, the weather was pretty stereotypical: rain, cloud, and wind. Lots and lots of wind, aka problem number two. As we were preparing to land, there came a wind shear warning. What that meant was the most turbulent flight I had ever experienced. It was like being in one of those roller coasters where it rattles around and churns the internal organs, except we were 10,000 feet above the ground and had no access to fresh air. It made Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger’s Miracle on the Hudson seem tame. The fried chicken I had was crawling its way up my throat, and it took everything I had to keep it in. Eyes closed, fists clenched, I prayed for the plane to land. But then, instead of going down, I felt a jerk in my stomach, and we went back up. We had to do a loop because the wind shear was too strong or something. What should’ve been a 15-minute peaceful flight over the open waters turned into 50 minutes of flying hell. We only needed a few cold-blooded reptiles, and not even Samuel L. Jackson would’ve made it. I could almost taste the regurgitated chicken in my mouth when we finally landed. I sighed a huge sigh of relief, trying to take in deep breaths to calm my nerves. But that’s when the smell hit me.

Even though I struggled to keep my lunch from exploding out of me, I was successful in my endeavour. Unfortunately, my triumph couldn’t be said for a few of my classmates. From what I heard, at least five guys emptied the contents of their stomachs during that flight. That included one classmate, who shall remain anonymous, in the row in front of me. He must have done it just as we landed, since I didn’t detect anything beforehand. But the smell. Everyone has vomited before. It’s human to vomit. Hands gripping the toilet bowl, sweat dripping down the forehead, everyone knows the feeling and the putrid smell that exudes from the toilet after relieving ourselves. The smell punched my nose, threatening to bring down all the work I put into keeping lunch in my stomach. Using my shirt as a gas mask, I had no choice but to stay put, since no one was getting off the plane. Having been exposed to the smell, however foul it was, I got acclimated to it, accepting that we would be stuck on a puke-smelling plane. Things started to calm down. The classmate was cleaning up; we were standing in our seats at the back of the plane, trying to stretch our legs in the cramped space. The flight hostess, who was kindly helping out the classmate, handed him a bunch of napkins and a big plastic bag to put the little air-sickness bags into. That was the setup for problem number three, probably the single worst thing that could have happened in our scenario.

Everyone was standing up, ready to get out of that godforsaken plane. The aisle was full of people. The air hostess, who was now behind the seats in the back, called on the classmate to bring the big bag back. Given the crowded conditions, there was only one logical way to go about this: play hot potato with it down the rows. He gave it to me, and I gave it to another classmate sitting behind me. I was very conscious of touching the least amount of surface area possible when handling the bag. As I passed it along, relieved that that was over, I heard gasps. I turned around, and I saw the bag on the floor. There was a pool of orangey, chunky fluid that splattered the nearest things to it, one of which was my leg. The bag wasn’t tied off properly at the top, Murphy’s Law took place, and the inevitable happened. I wish I could say I was the good Samaritan and helped clean up the mess, or be the person who overreacted, or just have any sort of reaction at all, but I was honestly still drowsy from the six hours of sleep the night before, and I was in shock. I just stared at my leg, then at the pool, then back at my leg again. After a couple of minutes of disgruntled grumbling by the surrounding passengers, a mild attempt at corralling the pool and some furious scrubbing of myself, we finally set foot on the solid ground, taking in the frigid air of Nanaimo before being stuck for another two hours in a bus. 

So, this concludes my account of the harrowing flight to BC. There were many other stories from there, but that can wait for another day. But like all stories, there’s a moral, a big takeaway, a lesson that sticks with us wherever we go. I could say that I learned to deal with adversity. I could say that I learned how to properly prepare for flights. I could say that I learned how to be responsible in these kinds of scenarios. But my big takeaway? Make sure the bag is tied up properly.