Emma and the airline sick bag collection
It all started off with the lovely Emma. Emma Perks was her real name.
Illustratration by N. Senthilkumaran
Yes! That’s right, Perks was her surname! There have not been that many perks in this life for me but she was one of them.
She was a lovely girl who entered my life on the 2nd of April, 1993 precisely at 0930 hrs. GMT at Exmouth, Devon, UK. I was then working in the UK and she was then just an “office girl”, 18years, pretty faced, tall and lanky with long legs enhanced by a short skirt and black “stay up” stockings.
Of course! I immediately took a liking to the girl! The feeling was mutual.
Fast forwarding a few years, the “Lovely Emma” as I referred to her, fell in and out of love a few times with various blokes and eventually got married and then pregnant, in that conventional order.
She then suffered from the most awful “morning sickness” which often happened at work, and perversely, in the afternoons.
One of the other “perks” in my life at that time was that I frequently flew on domestic airlines.
I must have been thinking of poor Emma on that flight on Jersey European one evening, when totally bored out of my wits and idly rummaging in the seat pocket, I came across the airline sick bag complete with the rainbow-coloured logo of the said airline.
I pocketed it!
The next morning I sent it to Emma, in the office internal mail and in an envelopemarked “Personal”. I did add a short note to the effect: “In Case of Afternoon Sickness Use Bag”
She was “pleased to bits” as they say in Britain, came up to me and said “You are crazy, Gyan!” and kissed me warmly! I do know my way into a girl’s heart. You don’t need flowers or chocolates.
Air sickness bags
Airline Sick Bags, known as vomitum saccis in Latin, are generally found on all airlines except on Burkina Faso Airways. They just provide a communal vomit bucket.
Going back to my early days as an airline vomitum saccis collector, I took a lot of risks. This period happened to coincide with my days of frequent flying.
On one trip to the Far East I collected no less than 11 bags from Cathay Pacific, Vietnam Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airlines System and even two from the now defunct Lao Aviation. This latter, from Lao Aviation, is the jewel in my collection.
Often I would collect several bags from each flight which earned me funny looks from fellow passengers including my wife. My wife at that time, who not surprisingly is now my ex-wife, consulted a psychiatrist friend and then a lawyer.
Meanwhile, Emma who got my duplicates started her own collection and continued to collect them even after the initial nauseous phase of her pregnancy. We often compared our collections.
Dangerous pastime
Now totally obsessed with vomitum saccis, it had become an addiction on my part;I even flew some airlines with extremely dodgy safety records just to collect sick bags.
These included Nigerian Airways, Blue Wing Airlines (Suriname), Itek Air (Kyrgyz Republic), Aerovisao de Mozambique, Transcarg (San Tome and Principe), Gabon Airlines and even American Airlines!
I was now at the height of my manic phase which occurs every 11 years just like sunspots do.
On at least one occasion I got into a fight with a fellow passenger over a vomit bag. It was on a United Airlines flight and “shock horror!” there was no sick bag for me.
I immediately grabbed the one in the seat next to me, which happened to be occupied by a portly middle-aged American woman who took umbrage at this.
Rather than explain my collection I pretended to be airsick and threatened to discharge the recently acquired contents of my stomach, including three double whiskies, in her ample lap.
That shut her up!
Get well soon
Airline sick bags generally conform to the same shape and size but are varied in that they are usually printed in the colours of the airline and come complete with instructions.
The latter include the terse notice “Vomit Here!” or the more common “Use bag in case of nausea”.
Others carry a logo of a vomiting man vomiting violently on a fellow passenger’s head. Some others carry a photograph of vomit as seen lying on a pavement on a Saturday night after pub closing time. Some are multilingual.
The bags on IndiGo, the new Indian airline, say “Get Well Soon!”
On Fun Airlines the bags ask “Regret having had that last whisky in departures, don’t you?”
On Vietnam Airways the words “Tui Non” are printed on the bag which stands for “Sickness Bag” and is a good way of learning a language. In Spanish it is “Bolsa de vomito”. Now you know!
Many happy returns!
Apart from the obvious, sick bags have other uses. They can be used as bags for presents such as sweets, jujubes, chocolates etc. at birthday parties and other occasions.
The little brats who immediately scoff down their sweets can then throw up into the empty bag. Very practical! Many Happy Returns!
I have even used them to give little trinkets from my travels to the office staff. At Christmas time you can also fill them with goodies and hang them on the Christmas tree.
Since they are waterproof they are also useful for keeping bank notes but make sure that nobody flushes them down the toilet.
In later years I put some of them up for sale on E-Bay and other sites with mixed results. I have recently written to Sotheby’s of London with a view to auctioning off parts of my collection.
I only expect a modest billion dollars for the lot but not including the rare Lao Aviation sick bag which is the Holy Grail of vomit bag collecting.
Needless to say that vomitus sacci, need to be in an unused or mint condition. Unlike with postage stamps, used sick bags have no value.
Fond memories
As for the Lovely Long-legged Emma who started all this; lots happened between us and in our individual lives, and our lives have now changed. Partly because of vomitus sacci.
She is still there somewhere. I do think of her often when I fly. I hope she still has her collection of barf bags and her sense of humour. If not and if ever she gets pregnant again all she needs to do is to contact me.
I might even part with my invaluable Lao Aviation vomit bag for her!