Let me tell you about my near-death experience. It happened while I was watching “Lost.”
For as long as I can remember, apples, bananas and pineapples have caused my mouth to itch when I eat them. I totally don’t care – fresh pineapple is just too damn delicious not to eat. Recently, I’ve felt the same way about apples, especially since Subway and The Buzz offer sliced apples you can buy, and nothing’s better than a whole apple except an apple that’s already sliced for you.
I got home from work last Wednesday and sat down to watch “Lost.” I was pretty excited; the season’s getting close to its end now, and answers are on the way. There was no way I was going to miss what could very likely be a pivotal episode.
All I’d eaten for dinner that night was a salad, so, naturally, I was hungry, and what do I decide to eat? A Red Delicious apple. Tasty. It was cold, crisp and sweet, with only a few minor bruises. It had the shape you think of whenever you think of an apple, with a deep, crimson-red skin that begged to be bitten into. I might go as far as to call it a perfect apple – the Brangelina of apples, if you will.
As I ate that beautiful specimen, my mouth and lips grew increasingly itchy, but I wasn’t really worried. This happened every time I ate an apple. Itchy lips certainly aren’t fun, but I think they’re worth it for the tastiness of apples.
So I continued to eat the apple. Hurley was being Hurley, Desmond was being mysterious and weird, Kate was flirting with Jack, and… oh my god… my throat was swelling. I couldn’t believe it – my throat was swelling, as in it-feels-weird-when-I-swallow swelling.
I didn’t know what to do. I sat there for a moment, wondering how long it would be before the swelling of my throat cut off my airway. My brother was sitting next to me on the couch, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to miss “Lost,” and I didn’t want to ruin it for him by saying anything that might cause panic. If I could just wait to die until after the episode ended, that would be great. I needed to find out if it really was Penelope in the helicopter before they could put “death by apple” on my tombstone. It’s pathetic, but true. You know you’re a true TV fan when all you can think about is TV when your life is on the line.
Panic was starting to set in, and my heart rate was rapidly increasing when it occurred to me that I had some allergy medication in the bathroom. Trying to look discreet, not wanting to let it show that I could suffocate at any moment, I calmly walked to the bathroom. Once in the bathroom and out of view, I fumbled through the medicine cabinet, opened the bottle of generic “allergy relief” and quickly swallowed one pill with some water from the sink.
I gathered myself and returned to the living room, where I gulped down ice water with the hope that it would reduce the swelling in my throat. I resumed watching “Lost” with my cell phone nearby, ready to call 911 at any moment and hoping that my brother knew how to perform a tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen.
Maybe it was the adrenaline rushing through my veins, or the fact that I was busy wondering how long it would take an ambulance to make it to my apartment, but in no time “Lost” was over and the itching and swelling were subsiding. I could swallow normally again, and I no longer had to worry about who got my DVD collection after I died.
Needless to say, I won’t be eating any apples any time soon, and I’m thinking I might make an appointment with an allergist… I owe it to the survivors of Flight 815.
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