A fly went by…
Of course, its still there, and now I fancy I can feel its little feelers searching for something to feed on
Have you noticed that no matter how hard you try to stay out of trouble, inevitably, something will go wrong. Take last Sunday for instance. I was feeling as fit as a fiddle, and believe you me, that is something at the ripe old age of 85! So I am doing a spot of gardening. You know the kind of thing, clipping off dead roses, pulling weeds and generally clearing away the mess than summer rain brings. Half an hour and I had pretty well cleared my entire garden. Then it happened.
A little out of breath, I breathed in some flying insect that stuck half way between my Adam’s apple and my epiglottis. Not quite sure where that is, but it certainly felt like my epi-whatsit…
In seconds flat I was coughing, choking, spitting and completely distraught. Naturally I ran to the kitchen for relief but despite several glasses of water, I couldn’t move the wretched creature either up or down. By this time I was in agony and I was confident that whatever it was stuck down there, it had proceeded to sting me, to boot!
Now I live alone, and my family who normally live nearby just happened to be out of town last Sunday, just to add to my dilemma. Eyes streaming and red faced I ran to the flat next door for assistance. No! They weren’t in either. “Oh Lord, what do I do now?” I thought.
Then emergency services came to mind. Of course, I needed to get to hospital, and quick before I pass out altogether. But what’s the ruddy number?
“Aha,” I cried aloud. “Nothing wrong with my memory, look in the front of the Yellow Pages they have that kind of information there.”
“Fire brigade…No!”
“Electricity supply…No!”
“Water…No!”
“Sewerage…No!”
“Police…No!”
By this time I was getting paranoid, where the blazes was the ambulance service? Another two glasses of water went down to join errant insect. Casting aside the telephone directory, I headed for my computer. Have you any idea how long that thing takes to `warm up’ when you have an emergency on your hands? Hours!
I sit gagging and gasping while my blessed Windows does its thing. “Now what?” I think. “I have this highly technical piece of electronics in front of me, but where do I go from here?” I take another glass of water…at least I’ll drown the thing if needs be.
Of course, its still there, and now I fancy I can feel its little feelers searching for something to feed on. Google comes up on the screen at last, and I type in CHOKE. Without a moments hesitation, up comes chokes and coils, fishing guide, carburettor, Zenith, Ford and Plymouth. I say a rude word since they were all the wrong kind of choke.
I type in THROAT and hit the enter key hoping against hope I had used the correct term for my predicament. Not a chance! Cancer, strep, sore, plus ear and nose were all there, but foreign bodies were never mentioned in the entire five hundred thousand classifications of throat.
Taking yet another glass of water a stroke of brilliance entered my mind.
Water wasn’t going to do a thing, I needed something a little stronger. Yes, something with more punch like whisky or perhaps brandy.
I make a dash for the drinks cabinet to find that the bottle of brandy that I bought to celebrate Nelson Mandela coming to power stood empty. The bottle of Dimple Haig I won in a darts tournament back in `85 however remained half full.
Frenzied now, I tore off the screw cap and guzzled the fiery liquid neat. It seared such a lethal passage down to my stomach that I was quite certain nothing could survive, and just to make sure, I had another. Problem solved. Thinking back, I guess there is good reasoning in keeping a bottle of hooch in the first-aid cabinet, if only for the odd fly that might, or might not fly by.
