# Associating innocent items with "being sick" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 11, 2005, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172 "2005-12-11T21:32:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![adhemar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@adhemar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhemar)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/21 "2005-12-12T06:22:28Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Similar: > > When I was a kid, I had a _serious_ bout with scarlet fever. > > At one point, my mother had left a glass of water sitting on a chair by my bed. I had a very difficult-to-describe fever dream/nightmare, where all my attention was focussed on this glass of water, and there was a sense not of personal illness, but intense _malice_ emanating from the water-glass. (Yeah, I know. Weird.) Overwhelming terror, and an inability to look away. > > Something of that feeling tends to creep back in whenever I see a tableau that is too close to that – a tumbler on a wooden chair, with a hardwood floor. Thankfully it doesn’t happen too often, but it’s kind of weird to be a party and suddenly feel like everything’s coming unglued because someone set their drink down in the wrong place. 😃 When I was a child I read a book about someone dying from scarlet fever just as I was coming down with Strep throat. I was reaaly sick and got it all twisted in my feverish little brain that I had Scarlet fever. I kept asking over and over if I had scarlet fever. (I guess they both started with an s. I cannot to this day eat chicken enchiladas. 25 years ago my office went to a mexican place for lunch to celebrate me finally getting a new car. I got food poisoning. (deleted description that was wy too much information. I was sick I was really sick) ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/22 "2005-12-12T07:24:15Z")
> [@Dead Cat](#): > > I don’t believe I have any food aversions (other than to foods I just don’t like :)), but I do do something similar: when reading about a bad smell being described, I’ll unconsciously begin breathing only through my mouth before I realise I’m doing it. You mustn’t breath through your mouth when there is a bad smell, that is akin to _eating_ the smell, you must breath through the nose and endure the smell. > [@](#): > > Oh, wait, I do have a food one: vodka. When I first drank it, I swigged it neat in large quantities and enjoyed it. Needless to say, that made me very, very ill, in embarassing fashion, in front of my family. Since then I don’t like the taste of it (but still drink it with Coke etc.). A close friend of mine has experienced exactly the same thing. Remarkably similar to mine. I used to drink vodka regularly, normally with orange juice. One afternoon I turned up to a work function with a bottle of vodka, a bottle of orange juice, and a great big plastic bowl with a stem that was apparently some form of wine glass. For no particular reason, I was filling half the wine glass with vodka and adding a dash of orange for colour and flavour. Literally within 60mins I was semi conscious hanging over a toilet bowl, wiping spew off my face and asking people to get my wife to come help me. Since then I have not been inclined to drink vodka again. Orange juice is ok though, couldn’t really taste the orange anyway. ---
**Author:** ![purple\_haze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@purple\_haze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purple_haze)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/23 "2005-12-12T08:01:46Z")
Only recently can I eat watermelon again, because of a food poisoning episode at the Chicago Blues festival. That was 17 YEARS ago. I used to love watermelon, but now have only worked my way up to small pieces occasionally. The best thing in the world for an upset stomach is a frozen coke! I think it’s my favorite comfort item when I’m not feeling well. ---
**Author:** ![Giant\_Spongess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@Giant\_Spongess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giant_Spongess)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/24 "2005-12-12T08:14:19Z")
A couple years ago, I got food poisoning. The last thing I had eaten before I got sick was popcorn, which still makes me a bit queasy to smell (though I can stand to eat it on occasion). This isn’t all that unusual–the unusual bit was after the first 4 or 5 hours of puking every 20 minutes, I associated feeling bad with my bed, so I hung out in the lounge for the next 5 hours. I eventually got delerious and refused to go back into my room, but fortunately the housekeeper saw me pass out over the arm of a couch. I was so out of it I had no idea I’d kept blacking out, though later the memory of coming to on the floor of the bathroom registered as something I should have payed attention to. Even now, there’s a certain firmness of matress that I don’t like to sleep on, just because it doesn’t feel good (let alone the punishment to my back!). ---
**Author:** ![SparrowHawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac8455/32.png) [@SparrowHawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SparrowHawk)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/25 "2005-12-12T08:22:47Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Unfortunately, so far I’m alone in feeling barfy about books. I knew I was weird. You and me both, then. I remember reading Ellis Peters when I was pregnant and having morning (and afternoon and evening) sickness. Just walking past her books on the library shelf induces a wave of nausea now. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/26 "2005-12-12T15:02:31Z")
Hmm. I know I have weird associations like this with books, but I can’t think of any now. I do have the more common associations directly with food; in particular, I can’t eat or even really look at bruscetta anymore after getting food poisoning from some that had been left out. In fact, I got a wave of nausea typing this paragraph. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/27 "2005-12-12T15:19:56Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > For some reason, when we were sick, my mom made us drink Sprite or 7-Up. For some reason clear soda had some sort of healing power. > So, when I’m sick I want Sprite or 7-Up. It was tomato soup for me. The only time I ever want to eat it is when I’m sicker than a dog. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/28 "2005-12-12T16:11:14Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Does anyone else form this type of association or am I a lone loon crying in the wilderness? With the book thing, I think you’re going to be a pretty lonely loon, because that is very strange. However, I’m weird too, so I’m not going to poke fun. I want to replace the filter system on my fishtank in the near future. Nope, there’s nothing wrong with it, other than it keeps making a spitting noise. That doesn’t affect its function, but I’m a synesthete and it makes it hard to sleep when I see flashes of white every time it makes that noise when my eyes are closed… “Some books make me feel ill” sounds less strange than “I see certain sounds” doesn’t it? 😃 Food aversions, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/29 "2005-12-12T16:52:04Z")
Okay… Many years ago my husband and I went to watch our son perform in _The Nutcracker_. Afterwards we went out to eat. My husband was, unbeknownst to him, coming down with a really bad flu. He made it through the performance, began flagging at dinner, did the unprecedented action of sending his steak back because it was too rare and then didn’t clean his plate (even if the food was not great he always ate it all). The next day he was really sick. It wasn’t a stomach virus but during the course of the illness, which lasted several days, he did on occasion cough so hard that he threw up. Not only have we never been back to that restaurant (which was a family tradition, but alas, no more), he can’t listen to any of the music from _The Nutcracker_ without feeling ill. Still. Twelve years later. (I was the one who should have been sick of _The Nutcracker_. I took the kid to, and picked him up after, 31 performances, not to mention I worked backstage for several of them.) ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/30 "2005-12-12T17:07:14Z")
Yeah, I think you might be alone on the books. I can’t eat onions because of a food poisoning incident when I was a kid. Dad and I went to Dairy Queen, and I ordered onion rings. I thought they tasted kind of weird, and told my dad. So what does he do? He eats the rest of them. We were both sick all night. :smack: I also can’t drink Southern Comfort. Seventeen shots’ll do ya! My sister can’t eat (or stand the smell of ) ketchup because when she was a kid someone shoved ketchup down her throat and it made her throw up. I’m now rather queasy from thinking about onions and Southern Comfort. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/31 "2005-12-12T17:32:58Z")
When I was a kid, I got terribly car sick on a trip after drinking a can of Pepsi from a machine. I haven’t been able to stand the stuff ever since, though I’m sure the Pepsi had nothing to do with it. On the other hand, when I was in college I got poisoned by chicken roll from a supermarket, and it didn’t turn me on that kind of meat - only from that store. (And I mean you, Purity Supreme in Central Square, Cambridge.) ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/32 "2005-12-12T17:41:30Z")
> [@SparrowHawk](#): > > You and me both, then. I remember reading Ellis Peters when I was pregnant and having morning (and afternoon and evening) sickness. Just walking past her books on the library shelf induces a wave of nausea now. I knew I couldn’t be alone. I mean, if there’s weirdness somewhere, it’s bound to be on the Dope, right? Yay! ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/33 "2005-12-12T19:11:27Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > For some reason, when we were sick, my mom made us drink Sprite or 7-Up. For some reason clear soda had some sort of healing power. It’s the sugar. I use regular (not diet) Coke when I’m feeling nauseous, and it works. When I was a kid, my pediatrician recommended lollipops for the same purpose. > [@adhemar](#): > > When I was a child I read a book about someone dying from scarlet fever just as I was coming down with Strep throat. I was reaaly sick and got it all twisted in my feverish little brain that I had Scarlet fever. I kept asking over and over if I had scarlet fever. (I guess they both started with an s. [They’re both caused by strep bacteria.](http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/scarlet_fever.html) Of course, dying from scarlet fever is [rare these days](http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/s/scarlet_fever/stats.htm) because of antibiotics and other modern medicine. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/34 "2005-12-12T19:25:51Z")
I used to associate ginger ale with being sick, that’s the only time I’d drink it when I was a kid, but as an adult I drink it often and got over the association. I watched the entire run of the ‘Aeon Flux’ cartoon once when I was home sick from work with the flu, and because of the association I haven’t wanted to wacth those tapes since and it’s been several years. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/35 "2005-12-12T19:52:19Z")
I used to like Dan Fogelberg a LOT – until we had to do a group dance performance in 8th-grade gym class. It was bad enough that junior high school was the worst time of my life – I was socially awkward and had few friends, and so was stuck creating a dance routine with people I could barely stand and vice versa. I got up on the day we had to put on our final routine to be graded and guess what? It’s SCARLETT’S FIRST PERIOD!! Now whenever I hear “Longer Than” I am immediately transported back to that awful day. (Nothing embarrassing happened, but my usual awkwardness was quadrupled and I felt like even more of a loser than usual, sure that my secret would be found out and I’d be even more humiliated than every other day. Besides being ever conscious of my crotch while trying to be graceful.) * * * I was heating up a bowl of Campbell’s cream of asparagus soup the night we had to take Miss Emily to the vet twice in one evening, and on the second trip she died on the way there. After we got home (with her body in the back of the van), I found my cold soup still in the microwave. I threw it out and haven’t bought another can since. Mr. S makes a wonderful asparagus soup, and I can order it in restaurants, but I can’t deal with the Campbell’s version. ---
**Author:** ![SpectBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@SpectBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpectBrain)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/36 "2005-12-12T22:29:56Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I’ve never met anyone who does this to the extent I do, but Dopers are weird, so: > > I was reading a book on Friday night–_The Shadow of the Torturer_–when I suffered an acute attack of food poisoning from some chili I had eaten earlier. (I am a damned fool for eating it.) > > I’m finally feeling better, but when I went to pick up the book earlier today, I felt a wave of nausea at the thought. > > This happened to me years ago with the book _Memoirs of an Invisible Man_. I caught some bug while I was reading the book and couldn’t bear to finish it once I felt better. To this day, the thought of that book makes me feel ill. > > Foods also have this effect on me. Mint and honey were both involved in separate incidents in my lifetime and I can’t bear the thought of either. > Does anyone else form this type of association or am I a lone loon crying in the wilderness? Early in the book, Shadow of the Torturer, ( I don’t really consider this a spoiler, spoiled meat maybe, but not a spoiler) a corpse is disinterred, “She hardly has a breath of stink on her.” and eaten. This to confer the corpses memories to those who partake of it. Definitely an oog moment. ---
**Author:** ![Squirt\_One\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Squirt\_One\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squirt_One_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/37 "2005-12-12T22:44:16Z")
Normally when I get sick it’s something in particular that puts me over the edge into puking. I’ll be tired and feel nauseous and then a thought will get stuck in my head. Usually graffic and in detail and then BAM I’m puking. One thing that puts me into puke-mode every time is the thought of egg shells. Stepping on them, crushing them in your fingers, smelling them…all of these pictures flash through my mind until there’s no hope left and I’m praying to the porcelain goddess. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![YaWanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/bbce88/32.png) [@YaWanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaWanna)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/38 "2005-12-12T23:50:37Z")
Mine is glazed doughnuts and gasoline. See, when I was a kid, we went on lots of car trips - to relatives, for vacation, etc. I had the unfortunate tendency to get motion sickness (still do, actually). So, first thing Dad would do when we were ready to head out on a trip in the car was to stop for doughnuts & fill up the car. When the inevitable happened a few hours later, my subconscious attributed cause-and effect to the smells from the start of the day, of course. Hence, glazed doughnuts and/or gasoline smells lead to nausea. I suppose if I caught them both at once, it could trigger dry heaves in seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/39 "2005-12-13T01:07:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > On the other hand, when I was in college I got poisoned by chicken roll from a supermarket, and it didn’t turn me on that kind of meat - only from that store. (And I mean you, Purity Supreme in Central Square, Cambridge.) Ugh! I think I got food poisoning just looking in that store’s _window_ one day. ::shudder:: You’ll be happy to know it’s gone now. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172/40 "2005-12-13T18:31:47Z")
Christmas/New Years. The last 2 years in a row I’ve gotten sick then - in 2003, I spent the week of Christmas passed out on the couch with food poisoning, and in 2004 it was strep throat and restless leg syndrome that left me unable to sleep (that persisted until March). I’m wondering what’s going to happen _this_ year. ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/associating-innocent-items-with-being-sick/335172.md?page=3)