Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Choking On Death


Why is it, the older people get, the more fascinated with death they become? Is it perhaps that they feel the grim reaper will be rapping on their own front door pretty soon? I don't know, but it bugs me. Case in point: my mother. I try to go to lunch with my mother at least once a week so we can just sit down and talk for an hour or two. I picked my mother up last week in my vintage Mazda (old) and we headed out of town to a new seafood restaurant.

Me- “So, what’s going on mama? Anything new happen this week?”

Mama- “Did you hear about the preacher’s wife?”

I sighed loudly. I mentally prepared myself for one of my mother’s long, rambling, gruesome stories about people she knew with grapefruit-sized brain tumors, breast cancer, skin cancer, stage 3 ovarian cancer or had stitches that popped open in the check-out line at Wal-Mart or were killed in a deadly car accident in the past week, etc… My mom and her church buddies seemed to revel in this stuff.

Me- “No, what happened?”

Mama- “Well, it seems he was at the hospital visiting sick people one morning and decided to go home to his pretty, young wife for lunch. They sat down to a lunch of fried chicken, tater salad, biscuits and ice tea. Well, she took one bite of her chicken, got it stuck in her throat and slowly choked to death right there in front of him. He tried doing the heimlich maneuver on her, pounded on her back, her chest…but nothing. She turned purple and died right there in his arms and get this, she was pregnant too."

Me- “Mama! Mama! Do you have to always tell me stuff like this? Oh my God, how horrible! Thanks for spreading your gloom.”

Mama- “Oh, I shouldn’t have told you…” She tried to sound contrite but I wasn’t fooled.

Me- “Well, don’t worry about it.” I reached over and turned up the volume Kim Wilde cd that was playing.

Mama- “I guess I shouldn’t bother telling you about what happened to that new lady I worked with…”

I didn’t say anything, just hummed even louder to Kids In America and waited.

Mama- “Well, she and her husband were at Wanda’s Wieners last Tuesday, I think it was... She took one bite of her hotdog and poof!” Mama snapped her fingers with a just like that finality, “She choked to death right there in front of everybody and get this, Wanda’s Wieners only closed down long enough for the EMT’s to come and remove the body !”

Me- “Oh Lord, mama! If you don’t stop!” I wailed and threatened at the same time. I felt like putting her out of the car, I really did.

Mama- “I guess, I shouldn’t have said anything…”

Me- “You love to depress me, don’t you? I swear you do. Do you realize you just told me two stories about people choking to death and we’re going out to eat?

By the time we got to the restaurant I’d completely forgotten her terrible tales and ordered surf-n-turf. Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm, I am.

1 comment:

Geoff said...

Well Rebecca, I envy you! I never seem to recover quickly from my own mothers stories lol. (Surf n Turf sounds really good right now!)