On Aug. 27 I sat beside my friend Kenny Choat, who started telling me about a story he had told one of his grandchildren. It got my attention when he explained that I was involved.
He asked me if I remembered when he and I went on a double date. He reminded me that he was dating his future wife, Bonnie Plummer. Neither Kenny nor I remembered my date. After careful consideration I think I remember, but I will not embarrass her by naming her.
As soon as Kenny started telling the story, it all came back to me.
He and I met that evening at my dad’s Sunoco service station on Madison Avenue. Kenny was going to drive, and his car was spotless. We were off to pick up our dates. We were not far down the road when I asked Kenny if he could smell that terrible odor that I had noticed. He had not. Again I asked and got the same answer.
A couple of minutes later I assured him that something stunk in his car. I leaned over the back of my seat, made a loud gurgling noise and asked Kenny what had caused that awful mess on the floor. He quickly pulled over to examine my discovery. I told Kenny that I wasn’t an expert of the subject, but I thought it looked like someone had vomited.
Kenny was smelling the air and turning a bit pale. He finally exclaimed that we had to go back to the service station to clean up the mess. We flew into the station’s parking area, and Kenny ran to get some cleaning supplies. I got out, walked around to the driver’s side, opened the door and picked up my new fake vomit toy. It was made of rubber and appeared quite authentic.
I carried it over to my car and tossed it in the trunk. Here came Kenny with this cleaning supplies. If I had possessed a cellphone with a camera at the time, I could have taken a wonderful picture of a confused Kenny as he examined the floor of his car. It seemed to be clean and dry.
I finally retrieved the rubber puke and showed it to him. He was astonished. We jumped into the car and once again headed out to pick up our dates. I’m sure we laughed about that all evening.
I used that toy a few other times with almost the same results.
I looked online and found that are several versions of rubber vomit available today. I might have to make a purchase. Thanks for the memories, Kenny.
Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He is married to Lyn Shonk.