I have a friend who had the classic experience of bad catering and the entire wedding party falling ill. Not cool.

Two people out of the 10 people who were at my Thanksgiving dinner complained of apparent food poisoning the next day. I don’t know what they ate that no one else did.

I occasionally give my self food poisoning by eating fruit or bread with mold that I don’t see until it’s too late. I would not stop have people over because of it.

My sister once attended a family reunion even though she was sick with the flu. I caught it, as did at least three other family members. I had to change my flight home because of it. I hate the commercials that show people who are able to attend parties because they masked their symptoms of sickness by taking some medication.

If it was the 24 hour intestinal flu it spreads like wildfire and has a short, 12–24 hour incubation period. All it takes is one kid and everyone is puking 24hours later. Impossible to say. Regular colds and flus have about a 72 hour incubation. I avoid barfing children like the plague. haha

In 1980 the District Manager joined us at a jobsite near Albany, NY, for meetings with the customer. That evening he took the site management team to dinner (about five of us, I think) at a local Italian restaurant. I think four of the six people, total, ordered a particular dish there and all got food poisoning later that evening. He hadn’t ordered the dish that we did, so he didn’t get sick. It was pretty embarrassing that most of us showed up late to work the next day, and still feeling sick though the day.

@ I wouldn’t have gone to work,screw that! haha

I thought this question was about a lot of people drinking themselves until they puked. I’ve only been at parties where I drunk that much. Well, party might be too grand a word. The first time there was only me and my best friend.

But I see this isn’t about that at all. I’ve never been at a party where a lot of people got sick, either from food poisoning, an infectious disease or from alcohol poisoning.

My mother tells me I got chicken pox from a birthday party when I was a child. I wasn’t the only one who got them so I guess this would qualify.

On my 4th birthday, I had whooping cough. My dad was medical commissioner (or something) and he allowed me to have a birthday party with 3 of my friends, who also had whooping cough. My mom made a centerpiece of a basket full of popcorn with colored ribbons coming out of it. We each pulled a ribbon out at the same time to get the prize at the end, The popcorn went flying. Great effect! It didn’t occur to Mom that we might eat the pop corn, but we did. The resulting scratching on 4 little throats caused an uproar of whooping and coughing. I don’t know if anybody else got sick, but I remember being upset that I didn’t make it upstairs in time to throw up.

Last year we had a family gathering, and one of the little kids appeared to be coming down with something. The next day, we all started to fall like dominoes, and it spread like wildfire throughout all of the families and friends any of us had contact with over the next several days. Just about the worst flu any of us had ever had, and by far the most contagious. Only two people in attendance missed it, and they were both drinking copious amounts of liquor… we figure the booze killed the virus. Even my one daughter who never gets sick was puking for days. It was not fun.

Didn’t stop us from having family gatherings…I guess it’s just a risk we take. ;)

On board the Titanic?

@majorrich I remember parents throwing “chicken pox parties” during summer vacation, so we’d all catch it and be done before school started.

Aah, the days before Varicella vaccinations.

@augustlan Interestingly, 2 of the 3 people who I know didn’t get sick from this party were drinkers, and were out the night before getting hammered. You may be on to something.