Ice Pops. Scourge of the IT teacher.
Ever since I've been a kid, I've always eaten quickly. It must have come from the times when I was nobbut knee-high to a grasshopper and there wasn't a lot to go round - when you ate, you ate as quick and as much as you could because you didn't know when the next lot would be coming.

Anyway, as I got older this trait continued, up to the point where our story begins. It was a hot summer's day in Sheffield, the kind of day where you're permanently damp and sticky because of the humidity. In this case when you're a poor teenager there is only one solution - the 10p ice pop.

The cheap mixture of chemical colours and flavourings in frozen water was a brief respite to the sweltering heat, and with that day being a particular bad un, I decided to have what medieval people would have called a surfeit of ice pops from the corner shop at dinner time...

After the frozen feast, the walk back to school seemed to unleash some kind of unholy chemical reaction in my gut, resulting in a godawful bout of nausea.

I had IT straight after dinner with the very angry and evil Mr Howard, a man who clearly didn't like me (I think he felt threatened by my genuine ability and confidence with computers - he came from a time when computers were bigger than Lancashire and were operated with valves) and clearly wouldn't pay heed to my claims of illness.

You can see what's coming, right?

After managing for about 15 mins in the super-heated IT room, I made a bid for the toilets. Being a nice boy, I asked permission first...

Me (with hand up, like a good 'un): "Sir, I don't feel well, can I go to the toilet?"
Mr Howard: 'No Mr Apprentice, you'll have to sit through it..."
Me (out of seat and edging to the door): "But Sir, I feel really sick, honest, can I go?"
Mr Howard (volume louder than The Who's Live At Leeds album): "NO, NOW SIT DOWN, DO AS YOU'RE TOLD OR I'LL HAVE YOU IN DETENTION FOR YOUR CHEEK".

That was me told. Or so I thought.

About five minutes later, I started those horrible vomit burps. Something was coming and it wasn't going to be pretty.

I got up out of my chair and legged it to the front desk.

Me: "Sir, I REALLY need to go, I'm going to be sick..."

It was at this point that Mr Howard decided to make a show of things and drew everyone's attention to what he felt was a pitiful example of a pupil when all of a sudden, a torrent of vom rose out of my gut. I put my hand over my mouth to stop it going on to Mr Howard's desk, however I'd not excuted the move properly.

No, the fingers on my hands were opened up, creating some kind of spraying capability for the vomit to disperse in all directions - imagine a garden sprinkler but with spew coming out of it and you've got the picture.

I managed to cover a fair bit of the IT room, two kids, Mr Howard's desk and PC, and more importantly, Mr Howard himself with a fine mist of spew. To top it off, my vomit was a lovely green hue, a blend of the colourings I'd ingested in my ice pop gorge-fest earlier.

I got the rest of the day off, and anytime I needed to go to the toilet in Mr Howard's lesson again, I was free to do so without even a question.

Great stuff.

On a less funny note however, it turned out that my sickness bout was part of the onset of some terrible form of stress-related gastro-enteritis, which lasted right through my exams and got me extra time due to my constant need to leg it to the toilet.

Still, got an A in IT. Bonus.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Mon 2 Feb 2009, 16:01, Reply)