Mike's World Wide Web of Barfbags

People usually look at me strangely when they find out that I have a barfbag collection, even after I assure them that I only collect unused ones. I started this collection at the beginning of my freshman year when I flew into Boston from Denver on United. This historic barfbag is included below. Since then, I've taken a barfbag practically everytime I fly. I was afraid at first, sneaking them into my carry-on luggage during take-offs or landings, but now I steal them with pride.

Domestic Bags

Continental
I picked up a pair of these bags on the flight to and from a plant tour in Maryland. The trip was pretty cool; the company had SkyBox seats at the UsAir arena and we got to watch a Bullets-Nets game with all the catered beer and pizza we could consume.
The thing I like best about this bag is the lack of any mention of air-sickness...like its only purpose is to save your seat on the plane. Use it and leave it sitting there; then you really won't have to worry about losing your seat.

United
This is the first barfbag I ever collected (touching, eh?). I've got ten of these; I'm in the United Mileage Plus program, so I tend to fly United quite a bit. So much, in fact, that I've been able to witness the evolution of United's barfbags over the last six years.

United
This is the next step in United barfbags. I've got four of these from various trips home. Notice that United has changed the instructions, probably realizing that the only sort of refuse which ends up in these bags is partially digested airline "food".

United
The latest generation (that I've seen) of United barfbags. I have four of these as well. Although not radically different than the previous generation, the text has been moved and the fonts adjusted for more effective alleviation of air-sickness.

USAir
I got this bag on a trip to the University of Pennsylvania to set up some of my lab group's demos. For some reason, I only have one of these; the flight down was pretty early in the morning and I probably forgot to take the barfbag.
Notice the blatant lack of instructions on this bag. Either USAir doesn't expect people to experience any nausea on their flights or they figure that most of their regular customers are well aquainted with the use of this device.

Delta I got this bag from a friend a few years ago. For a domestic flight, they've sure got their foreign language bases covered. Oh, well...I never learned either of these handy survival phrases in my foreign language classes.

International Bags

KLM This is another bag that I got from a friend; they were travelling to Ireland. A pretty unremarkable barf bag, except for the lack of the fold-over tabs at the top to securely close the bag. Don't be using this guy to save your seat.

Virgin This bag is my most recent acquisition, from my girlfriend's trip to London. This bag also lacks the fold-over tabs. Must be something about foreign airlines.
This bag is my favorite yet, mainly for its straight-forward attitude. No hiding behind terms like "refuse" and "motion discomfort". No sir...the only way it could be more straight-forward would be to come out and say, "Please puke in this bag instead of your lap."

Other People's Bags

Unix Barf Bag
I stole this guy from the Unix Hater's Handbook page. Yes, I actually did a Lycos search for the word "barfbag". Ain't the Web great?

Spike and Mike Barf Bag My friend Jay in Oregon scanned this in and sent it to me. He says:
I got this at a gross animation festival. They only give it to people who come to the midnight show. (Since they had extra gross cartoons then.)
The captions to each of the frames from left to right, top to bottom are: Gag, Barf, Puke Toss the cookies, Lose the Lunch, Spill the Oats Techicolor Yawn, Playing the whale, Dry Heave Laughing at the Ground, Talking to the Toilet, Driving the Porcelain Bus

Stevebo's Collection : I just found Steve Silberberg's barfbag collection. This guy travels a lot more than I do, I'll tell you...my meager collection feels a bit inadequate now. Oh well, I guess it's not the size that counts, but how you use them... Back to my homepage.