For the record, the only thing more miserable than spending New Year’s Eve and Day throwing up is doing so sober.

Strike that.

There is one thing worse, and that’s the throwing up which comes after one has thrown up every microgram of food, every drop of liquid one has consumed. The kind that leaves you gap-mouthed and drooling into a toilet while your stomach feels like it’s trying to launch itself, bottom first, out of your mouth. The kind that produces that hideous eye-, throat- and nose-burning bile in a shade of yellow which, when seen in nature, is itself nausea-inducing.

Oh, wait. I’m wrong again.

What’s even worse than that is, after enduring 26 or so hours of such vomiting, calling your doctor’s office and reaching her answering service company, only you don’t realize that the person on the other end of the phone isn’t sitting arm’s length away from your doctor where she could, if she understood just how absolutely awful you feel, reach over and drag the doctor to the phone.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I prefer talking to answering services over dealing with voice mail hell any day and particularly on days when I’m sick. Hearing that I need to “Press 1 for English, 2 for Espanol. Or, if this is an emergency, please dial 911″ infuriates me. Like I wouldn’t have called 911 already if it was? That’s a lot easier than remembering my doctor’s phone number, after all.

I prefer reaching a service over a machine, too, since there’s no way of knowing when someone will actually pick up messages. At least talking to a real, live human — whether she’s there at my doctor’s office or not — feels a bit more comforting.

No, what really, truly bothered me about reaching my doctor’s answering service was being asked, in a nicely professional and courteous voice, for my name, number and list of symptoms, all of which I started to provide until another wave of nausea wracked my body and forced me to drop the phone while that poor woman had no choice but to listen to me puke.

To her credit, when I did manage to wipe my mouth and return to the phone she simply said, “Nausea and vomiting. Got it. I hope you feel better soon!” before hanging up the phone. I guarantee this: whatever my doctor is paying them, it’s not enough.

Two minutes later, my doctor rang to let me know she’d already called in a prescription for an anti-emetic. I’m thinking the lady at the service couldn’t have made that happen faster even if she’d been sitting arm’s length from my doctor at the time. Bless her heart. (And I mean that in the non-Southern way.)

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