PUKERS!

WTF? I know I’ve complained quite recently about the books I’ve been reading so I should just shut up but I can’t so suck it.

Where is all this PUKING coming from? In almost every book I read a woman pukes when faced with some sort of S.H.O.C.K.I.N.G! news or some harsh reality. She generally turns some interesting greenish hue then vomits.

I’m an adult, I’ve RARELY vomited as an adult and when I have it’s been for very specific reasons; (a) I have the flu and I have it BAD and (b) I drank too much. That’s it and both of those are extremely rare. In my memory I’ve had the flu bad enough to vomit just once as an adult (last February) and I haven’t drunk enough to vomit since the ‘80s.

I just started to read a new book; mere moments ago and the lead character vomited in the PROLOGUE! Kid you not.

I’ve been faced with shocking, bad and disturbing news on many occasions as an adult. All of us have. It’s run the gamut from an ex-boyfriend slipping an engagement ring on a close friend’s finger (they never married, still very close with my friend and still talk to the ex, both of us do), to someone dying suddenly and finding out about it as I’m walking into work to start the day.

I have not been driven to worship at the porcelain alter for these or any of the many other shocking incidents adulthood has flung my way.

I get it; at least I think I do. The author is trying to convey just HOW SHOCKING it is. It’s shocking enough to evoke a physical act of revulsion; food and bile are forced up and out burning a path through the shocked person’s esophagus. But it’s stupid.

It is. Please stop it. Express the shock in a way that makes sense for the average adult and that is NOT by puking up their lunch.

Most people suppress the puking reflex sometime around their ‘tween years (except those who are entering into a bulimic phase in which case they’re actually honing their gag reflex to produce vomit, but that’s a whole other illness not to be addressed here). Think back, little kids seem to be able to vomit with no warning then go right back to enjoying their day. Too much soda and candy can bring on a big pile of vomit. The kid immediately feels better and is begging to go in the bouncy house while the parents are left swimming through a sea of grossness.

As the years march on you just naturally figure out that vomiting is no fun and you don’t wanna do it. Apparently the exception to this is if you are a female character in a work of fiction.

I can understand vomiting if faced with a truly gross image and smell. Walking into a shack filled with death (if that happens to be a plot line in your particular story) could easily make folks of both genders toss their cookies, yeah, I’m on board with that line of puking. I am not on board with puking because you found out that an old friend was marrying some unsavory character from your past or puking because of a bad memory. No, just no.

Stop it now.

Look I know it’s fiction and in fiction you, the writer, are the creator of the known universe but it seems that a lot of creators aren’t very original with their creation if they’ve all created a genre of the female puker.