Last Saturday Sarah1 and I went, as Missy Misdemeanor Elliot is wont to say, to get our hair did. It was mostly a pretty calm-and-steady event. We went, we got our hair done, and we left. Neither of us walked away with blue hair or a terribly lopsided ‘do. So why am I mentioning this now? Not because I have taken pictures of my cute hair, though that would be a good reason. I’m talking about it now because I almost died while I was sitting in that chair.
Sarah1 stopped on her way to the appointment and grabbed herself some PeiWei. PeiWei is delicious and I did not stop to grab myself some PeiWei. Luckily for me, Sarah1 is the sharing type (well, at least when it comes to sharing with me, she is), and she offered me half of her Honey Seared Chicken to eat while I was getting my hair wrapped in tin foil.
From the way I was gobbling down that food, you’d have thought I’d been starved for days. I was shoveling in heap after heap of chicken and white rice; I was eating so fast that I wasn’t even taking time to chew. Or produce saliva, as it turned out, because I totally started choking.
I wasn’t all the way choking. Not the kind where your airway really is 100% blocked and there’s nothing getting in or out. This wasn’t a Heimlich Maneuver kind of a situation. It was more like the kind of choking that a person experiences when they… well… shove too-massive amounts of starchy food down their throat in too-short amounts of time. Kind of exactly like what I’d done. More frequently I experience this kind of choking with cupcakes. Occasionally, I encounter the problem with rice or sauce-less pasta. No harm, no foul, right? Cause everyone who’s anyone in the carb loving world knows that there is but one solution to this carb-tastic problem. That solution is LIQUID. It’s a pretty simple solution. Unless, of course, you’re Sarah1. Then the situation gets stickier.
You see, I used to be addicted to Coke. The Coca-Cola Classic kind. I was a 5-Coke-a-Day kind of a girl for the better part of 3 years and it took some serious will power, an act of God and Dr.’s Orders for me to finally set down the bottle and walk away. I hadn’t had a sip of Coke (or any other caffeinated beverage for that matter) in 6 weeks shy of A Whole Year. This nearly-complete year of Cokelessness was all Sarah1 could think about as I was sitting there in the chair, dang near pseudo-choking TO DEATH, gesturing for her to FORK OVER THE BEVERAGE SISTER, THE CARBS ARE TRYING TO KILL ME.
Seeing my frantic, flailing arm motions, Sarah1 looked at me, then at her hand with the Coke in it, then back at me again. I thought to myself, “Okay, she doesn’t understand that I’m not just asking for a sip of her tasty beverage for kicks and giggles here. Must communicate more effectively.” I magically eeked out a “HELP. DRINK.” Sarah1 finally said out loud what her holdup was. “You haven’t had a drink of Coke for so long! I’d hate to ruin it right now! I don’t want to be the reason you start drinking Cokes again!” She said to me, still holding my lifeline-with-a-lid in her hand on the other side of the room.
I explained the gravity of the situation to her in the shortest way possible. I said, “Dying.”
She forked over the Coke.
I took a sip. I felt the massive Carb Party in My Throat move southward down the Esophagus. I handed the Coke back to Sarah1, who had assumed a nail-biting position, waiting (I can only assume) for my head to start spinning around independently from my body. Or maybe for me to ask for a Coke IV to try to make up for all the Soda Time lost.
I found the Coke to be deliciously life-saving, but other than that, kind of watered down and really, really sweet. Not at all having the satisfying crispness that I remember. When she finally broke the silence to ask how it was, I told her just that. I was appreciative for the help, but I think I’m clear of the danger of slipping back over to the Dark Side. I just needed a sip.
That’s when Adrienne the Hairdresser grabbed a bottle of water out of her purse and was all, “Do you want to drink this instead?”
