Cough, Sputter and Belly Laugh

Two things happened last week that each gave me a moment of pause.

The first happened while I was driving to work. I didn't have to be at school until a little before 12:00 so I stopped at Dairy Queen on the way out of town (I was driving about 20 miles to Blessing) to get lunch because I'm honestly too lazy to make something here at the house. Back to the story. I got my kid's meal -- two chicken strips, a small fries and a diet coke and drove off.

To me this is an easy meal to eat on the road. Who cares if there is a little grease on the steering wheel. Shhhhh don't tell Robert. I had gone just a little ways munching fries and chicken when a song I like came on the radio and I began to sing along. Problem now occurred. As I started to sing, I sucked in air and a small piece of the chicken too. This is not an uncommon experience. I usually go into a coughing fit and every thing is fine. This time was different.

NO AIR --- I couldn't breath. I pulled the car over and turned the flashers on. I was in panic mode. Honestly -- NO AIR! I was trying to remember if I had ever read anything about giving yourself the Heimlich maneuver in all those email I get about what to do when..... Nothing -- but I knew I needed to do something so I gave a haw forcing the air up as best I could. It worked! Praise God it worked! I felt the piece of chicken come up followed by gulping air and coughing. Whew, back to the coughing, chocking thing I'm familiar with. I sat there for several more minutes coughing so hard I was crying, but I was getting air. I recovered quickly and by the time I had driven to work I had all but forgotten the incident.

Now the moment of pause. As I drove off I began to play that *I wonder game*. I wonder how long it would have been before someone would have stopped to see what was wrong, or I wonder how long it would have been before Robert came looking for me, or I wonder what the school would have done when I didn't answer my cell phone. I'm good at the I wonder game.

The other moment of pause came after reading a post by Velvet Verbosity about a challenge to women's magazines to stop airbrushing models on their covers and in articles. To let us see them as they are. All of it in an attempt to help us have better self-images. You can link to her article here for more information and how you can join the effort. All I could do was laugh. Not at the article, but at me.


What brought on that laughing is that the very day I read her blog I had forked over an extra $40.00 to have the church directory picture Robert and I had just had taken enhanced --- yep, wrinkles reduced, skin smoothed, teeth whitened --- everything they could do to make me (and him) look better was to be done. Maybe I'm more influenced by those perfect models than I like to admit.