Babble.

All my life, I have been afflicted by a severe combination of foot-in-mouth disease and logorrhea (verbal diarrhea).

Just today morning, I was talking to junior colleagues with whom I have a strictly professional relationship, and indeed, needed to impress on them the fact that I was a colleague they should look up to with respect and admiration.

So as we sipped our cups of coffee I told them three anecdotes, one after the other, as they listened respectfully…preparing to be amused. And all of my stories ended with someone or the other throwing up. I don’t know WHY vomit kept cropping up in my conversation…I had told those stories before, and actually in one of them, no one had even felt mildly sick before. It was all very mysterious.

By the middle of my second anecdote I kept thinking to myself, stop, stop right now…you know you vomit at the end of this story, make an excuse and leave right now!!! But NO…I had to stay and tell the story to its sickening finish. And start on a new one.

I saw one of them pour half his coffee down the sink with distaste by the stomach-churning climax of my last anecdote, while the other one looked rather too pale for 10 in the morning. I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop further words from spilling out and walked away. I’ll probably be called ‘Vomit girl’ or some such thing by those two till the end of our time here.

It happens to me often.

My female boss and I had gone out for an informal dinner this one time, and I kept making bizarre, lesbian innuendoes …and each time I said it I would think, “Bloody hell, what was that???” Like someone else had said it. The comments shocked me to the core, God knows how she took it. Needless to say, we’ve never gone out again.

During these attacks, my mouth runs on and on for 20-odd (very odd) minutes and my brain flaps around in alarm trying to get the mouth under control again.

It’s a painful, embarrassing affliction for those who have it, and can cause a lot of damage in public places. We are usually social outcastes by the age of 30 when the symptoms become full-blown.

I extend a heartfelt request to all my readers…if you come across anyone similarly afflicted do not treat him/her like a pariah. Try to understand the disease and accept us inspite of it.

We will thank you profusely and constantly, in between stories about the time you forgot to wear your pants, and how you wee-ed in the classroom when you were six.