I woke up a few days ago (I like to do that at least once a day) and was immediately teleported into what seemed to be a Three Stooges movie, only I wasn't sure if I was Curly or Larry. I definitely was not Moe, because, frankly, he had terrible hair. Anyway, my mother, bless her heart, decided to fall down by tripping over a dog, which triggered a desk chair to fall on top of her. I heard her yell, so I quickly came to her rescue by trying to pick up the chair and immediately falling down on top of the chair, which decided to get tangled up in a blanket laying on the floor for the dogs (of course we have blankets on the floor for the dogs), and fell down on top of the chair, right on top of my mother's leg.

Needless to say, that wasn't exactly the best course of action. I had to crawl over the chair (and my mother) to get to where I could get up, before I could even begin to help her up. I wasn't hurt, but Mom is still a bit sore from the ordeal. Funny, that.

I would like to mention I had been jolted out of bed by Mom's yell, so I hadn't quite woken up yet. One can't be expected to be at one's best when one is still partially asleep.

Not that I'd do much better wide awake.

My mother, bless her heart, is finding great joy in reminding me of my questionable rescue. It reminds me (and her) of the time when, several years ago, I was at the state fair with my mother and sister. We were sitting at a table eating teriyaki chicken off a stick (well, three separate sticks, technically... we didn't share the same one), and my mother started coughing. She's always coughing, usually because she swallowed wrong, etc. So it wasn't really cause for alarm that day. That is, it wouldn't have been if she had stopped after a reasonable amount of time.

Which she didn't. Turns out she was choking on a piece of chicken and could hardly breathe. To my sister's and my credit, we did realize this. Eventually. To hear my mother tell it, it was days later, but that's ridiculous. We were still sitting at the same table on the same day, after all. Surely the fair employees would have sent us home if we'd stayed past closing.

Once we realized she was choking, we did the only thing reasonable adults would do, which is to ask her if she was okay. But she employed a glare which said, without any words, that she was not only not okay, she was also going to kill us at a later time for not noticing her plight sooner.

Once we squared away the non-okay-ness of my mother, we set about trying to correct the situation. We realized we hadn't a clue as to how to dislodge the chicken (and right here I would like to request all of you who do not know the Heimlich maneuver to please go learn), so we alerted some nearby fair employees, whose medium age was roughly 15. One of them, who claimed his mother was a nurse, proceeded to do an interesting form of the Heimlich by way of my mother's ribs and not just below them as is proper, which served to dislodge the chicken... to a lower place in her throat. Not to mention it hurt Mom's ribs. He meant well, but it didn't quite work as planned.

So he sent another employee to go to the medic tent several yards away from our location. Thusly dispatched, this employee set off at an urgent gait, which, if played in super fast motion, might look like she was walking at a normal speed.

Seeing the futility of this, yet another employee was deployed, and that one did make it to the medic tent in a fairly rapid manner, and a cart was sent for Mom. She was taken to the tent, where they eventually discovered they couldn't do a darned thing for her (and I would like to point out here my brother was a medic for several years, and I value their service to our society very much), so an ambulance was called, and she was whisked to the hospital.

My sister and I followed in her car, and then spent several minutes in the waiting room, watching a muted tennis match on the television in the waiting room. Before you ask, I have no idea who was playing, nor do I know who won. I think it was somebody with a racket and little yellow balls.

Which sounds funny, when you think about it.

Anyway, doctors looked over my mother and couldn't figure out how to get the chicken dislodged, so it was decided that they would have to go in after it. This was not a prospect my mother was looking forward to. I don't blame her. In a fortunate turn of events, just before they were to do the procedure, the chicken, having had enough of being stuck, decided to come out on its own. So, in the end, she was spared any invasive medical procedures.

She had a very tiring and painful day, but I am glad to say she did indeed survive, and for that I am forever grateful. I'm fairly certain she is, too, despite her obviously inadequate children. Both of these incidents have provided her with enough guilt fodder to keep her in business for many years. She has also said, bless her heart, she wants written on her tombstone "I told you I was sick." She also refuses to eat teriyaki chicken. Can't imagine why.