PETA, Rejoice!

… for I will never eat sharkfin soup again.
Yesterday I was in Himeji on a business trip. After our meetings, we went to the top of Himeji castle in the miserable heat and walked our clients a fair distance to their posh hotel. We then walked to the inconveniently located and much crappier hotel that we were staying at (a pox on our financial dept.), changed out of our dripping-with-perspiration dress shirts into casual ones, and immediately headed out for Chinese food back at the client’s hotel restaurant.
I was on my third small glass of beer before the food came, and had just finished my bowl of sharkfin and crab soup and a couple of light entrees when I felt the rumbling in my stomach. An ominous rumbling.
To make a long story short, I suffered from either:
A. Heatstroke
B. Dehydration
C. Food Poisoning
D. Thermal shock, or
E. All of the above
I did not make it to the restroom in time.
Cupping my hand over my mouth only resulted in directing the explosive stream of sour vomit all over my shirt and slacks. My shirtfront was covered with semi-digested bits of crab meat and black fungus from the soup, plus other sour beer-smelling detritus.
I finally made it into a stall, got lightheaded, and almost dunked my head in the toilet before I realized there was an unflushed turd in it. This made me purge even more, after flushing a few hundred times (even I cannot sink so low as to puke on another man’s turd).
After I washed off my face and most of the puke off my clothes, I attempted to dry my shirt so as not to make it immediately noticeable that I had lost my cookies when I returned to the table. I fooled nobody for very long, since I turned green after smelling the greasy Chinese food again.
I excused myself before the next wave of nausea hit, weakly stumbled to the hotel lobby and hailed a cab outside. The cabbie was being a fucking cunt and seeing my still-damp shirtfront, asked if I’d been drinking. I said “what’s it to you,” and he threatened to stop the car and kick me out. I threatened to puke on the floor if he stopped before we reached my hotel… Thus I got back in a precarious state of stalemate.
I collapsed on the hotel bed and the world went away for a few sweet, blessed hours. I woke up before midnight feeling completely restored, and was unable to sleep again. I took a walk on the empty streets of the city, swearing off sharkfin soup and remembering the most important things in life.
With work, I am disenchanted.
The most important thing in life, at any given time, is not to be puking your guts out.