Mike moved to SC last year and we hadn't surfed together in 2963 days.
I personally had not shortboarded in 1013 days, without a doubt my longest dry spell since I started twenty-five years ago next month. Various and very problematic mental health issues (long story short: not finding joy in anything) conspired to keep me a dry guy.
My wife had gotten lunch . Just as I was receiving a Shrimp Diablo burrito (It's one of the spiciest burritos I've had; so much so that after the second round of bites I stopped adding hot sauce). Missed-It Mike texted me to pick him up to surf.
I had a twenty-minute window during which I had to get my oh-so-dry board and meet him at his dad-in-law's Lew's house and start and finish lunch.
I felt my scalp sweating as I pounded the vast majority of the burrito, only calling it with an ambitious one-biter left because otherwise I'd be late to pick him up.
I grabbed my Tomo and grimaced as I realized I'd not screwed the fins in. I grabbed two fins and did a quarter-assed attempt of spotting a fin key. No dice.
I picked Mike up, he had no fin key or wax. I briefly spoke with Mike's son who had just turned eleven and his voice was deeper than mine at twenty-two. Perhaps this formed the maelstrom that was to come?
We stopped at Progression (which I think is the best surf shop in North County) and I picked up the aforementioned equipment.
Mike had a brand new egg-resembling board, so he was amped to have the option wax to further aid traction.
We'd seen Ponto already and that sucked as it so often does when there's wind on it.
We went to our old haunt D St, cursorily checked it and got out thar.
My paddling muscles didn't begin to voice their protests until I was about half-way out. Their volume/vociferousness increased until we perched. Thank goodness I was trunking it and didn't have the wetsuit pushing against me or I really would have felt like a expletive deleted!
Eventually I got a look at one and paddled for it. I'd been stricken by how my muscle memory was still there. My body doing stuff on its own while I marveled at its autonomy: Frog-kicking mid-duckdive among other things.
I was popping up and taking too long and I ate it on my first wave. Did I mention I'd also neglected to grab a leash?
I swam in feeling a little woozy. I diagnosed it as acute above expletive obscured-try, fetched my board and paddled back out. About a couple of strokes, I began to feel like shit. I was nauseous and my onboard carnal computer relayed that I may be puking soon. Seconds later, I felt my first wretch, easily stifled. During a duckdive, a second one arrived and I immediately wondered if I was going to taste that spiciness again (or as Wayne Campbell might say "a little Dutch door action").
The realization that I would feel better after barfing came and went easily. I knew it was a bygone conclusion.
Before I get to what you fetishists are after, an aside: Is there a better sport during which to puke than surfing? I don't think so. You can dunk your mouth and blow chunky bubbles pretty quietly, possibly without detection.
Can you do that in tennis? No.
Basketball? Fudge No.
Diving? Maybe if you time it perfectly, though the resulting flotsam will almost certainly betray you.
I more weakly contained the last of my not so dry-heaves and then boom. My throat and mouth burned as the spicy sensation dominated, intermittently interrupted by my meal missiles. These didn't have far to fall to hit water.
I finished up, suspicious that a large burrito's worth of cargo hadn't yet exited me.
I felt better, and better. I perched and had a chance at another wave. I was too late on it, but this time I death-gripped my board so as not to have to swim in. I was flipped upside down as hell rained down around me, but stoked on having won the wrestling match, my trophy of a board in hand.
I paddled back out and felt at about 80%. I was starting to get cold and was still feeling the malaise so I was very appreciative when Mike agreed we could go in.
In posts past, I've described the feeling upon touching ground after a particularly hairy session. It's elation and the triumph of man over nature. My soles hit the sand and that feeling eluded me.
I waded in, barely even glancing at the party of three, sporting strings of G that was whimsically frolicking in the water, as they might during the opening credits of softcore 80's pornography (my research was for school FYI).
As I walked in the sand towards the stairs, for some reason I felt like kneeling down. I braced myself on my sideways board and the sand as I opened wide and welcomed into this world the second twin. Mike was very sympathetic and nice about it. It crossed my mind that I had made fun of Mike puking at this very spot many years ago, and that karmically, this was my punishment (good thing I'd never made fun of Mike for accidentally blowing a dude!).
I shakily made it up the stairs after having rinsed off.
In honor of this session's events, an abridged compendium of other bodily functions I've performed in the water:
Pissing: Pretty much every session
Pooping: A total of five times, one of them in Costa Rica on a boat trip during my 2008 wedding and the rest of them in El Salvador. Hey, you wanna know what's grosser than a floating feces? A half-sunk submarine!
'Popping': Only metaphorically, unfortunately. I didn't think of this in time, but rub-humping would have been a great progression from tired-ass dry-humping. Other than that 'Suit Slamming doesn't hold much appeal to me.
