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The Arugula Behind My Uvula On Thursday I was eating a sandwich at home for lunch, and got something stuck in my throat; it felt like a piece of lettuce at first. I could still breathe, but had trouble going for more than a few seconds without gagging or coughing. I made a lot of noises trying to get my throat unstuck, but to no avail. Booda danced around me excitedly while I gurgled, cursed, and choked, and Gina looked on with consternation. I continued with my impersonation of the possessed girl from The Exorcist until I actually puked, three times. Then I stopped the exorcism, figuring I was overdoing it a bit. Gina looked down my throat and couldn't see a thing. I spent the rest of the day learning how to consciously suspend my gag reflex— while whatever lived in my throat moved around and made its presence known, sometimes feeling like a small pebble, sometimes like a hair, or a stick. After a bad night's sleep, the next day I felt the same so I went to an ear/nose/throat specialist and told him my sad story. He couldn't see anything either, so he stuck a microscope tube thingy up my nose, around a bend, and down my throat. Then he said something that I discovered I don't like to hear from ear/nose/throat specialists: "Wow. That's amazing. I've never seen anything like that before... Fascinating!" Despite the tube that was simultaneously up my nose and down my throat, I managed to say, "Yeah? What is it?" (I was secretly hoping it wasn't a small toad. I was sure the ear/nose/throat guy hadn't ever seen anything like a toad caught in someone's throat before, and that he might say the same things.) He stared in the viewfinder for a few seconds, and finally said, "It's a little piece of lettuce, stuck at the very base of your tongue. Hold this, I'll get you some water." Then he left me holding the microscope contraption that was still attached to my face like that baby alien in, um, Alien, and he returned a minute later with a little dixie-cup. I drank while he watched the leaf avoid the rush of water. Then I gagged a lot while he poked at it with the front end of the tube. No luck, the leaf wasn't moving. We both concluded it had probably stuck into my throat with a pointed fibrous end, and wasn't going anywhere soon. I asked him if he was sure it was a piece of lettuce (or arugula— both were in my sandwich), and he said, "Oh yeah, I'm positive— it's green!" He told me that since I could breathe and swallow I should just drink and gargle a lot for a week. If it refused to go away, he'd have to put me to sleep and go after it with tools; it was too far down to easily reach. Anyway, long story short— it went away after a few more days of bothersome, itchy, chokey, tickley sensations. We spent Friday night with Rizolda. First we ate dinner at the Beijing. (We ate there Thursday too. New menu with lottsa fake chicken and beef dishes!) Then we had coffee, tea, and dessert at College Perk, at an outside table.  On
Saturday
night Gina and I dressed up in costumes and went to see Dan Hart play
at the New Deal. Dan dressed as an undecided voter. As usual he sang
some very good songs and kept us in
high spirits.Later that night we met a scad of friends at the Hoff theater to see Army of Darkness, with special live performance and heckling by Satanic Mechanics, a group that performs at movies. That was great fun. I helped heckle. We spent a good part of Sunday with Alfredo: brunch at the New Deal, a walk in the woods, and a trip to a mall to look at the new G5 iMacs. I just ordered one, BTW. Hope it works. That night, after giving out some candy to the urchins that came to our house, Gina dressed as a cute pixie and I dressed as Professor Oatmeal Henderson, the world's foremost absent minded evil professor. Then we went to DnA's to help scare the bejeezus out of trick-or-treaters. DnA had a great setup—fog machine, scary monsters, creepy sounds—and some of the parents came back to take photos, they liked it so much. After the trick-or-treaters stopped coming we told ghost stories for a while.       Then we went to another party at a friend of Dorian's, named Nick, who had a really interesting old house with lots of art work inside and peacocks outside. I got the distinct impression that the guys dressed like druids at the party weren't just dressed that way for Halloween; the outfits looked like something they were used to wearing. Gina and I eventually left that party and went to RnA's party, where most of the remaining guests were playing Slapticus. We listened to more ghost stories and came home. On Tuesday we voted and later ended up at Cathy's house with Dorian, Amethyst, Jason, Jack, Paul, and Susan to watch the results come in on Jon Stewart's special, Indecision 2004. Comic relief is a good thing during horror shows. I especially liked when Jon Stewart said that Mississippi had voted to ban "looking at dudes." So, now that we've turned the corner leaving what's left of our familiar bumbling plutocracy and entering the serous badlands of theocracy, we take comfort in each other, and in our dear friends. Hang on— this might be a rough ride, even rougher than the last four years. |
THE HEAP where we wade the web jonathan coulton |
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