This page chronicles a couple of my wackier moments – just because they still crack me up!
The Chocolate Covered Cherry Incident of 2003
Encoding the Aliens
The Chocolate Covered Cherry Incident of 2003
As I put the groceries away, my eyes keep glancing over to the unopened red box on my kitchen counter.
It’s calling to me, the evil temptress!
Didn’t it know that I had to finish putting the food away? Didn’t it understand that I only allowed myself to buy it once a year, so I had to savor the contents as long as I could? Didn’t the gooey, delicious, scrumptious, wonderful chocolate covered cherries inside want to survive just a little bit longer?
Because let’s not kid ourselves. No box of chocolate covered cherries ever lasts very long in my presence.
Earlier that day, when I first saw chocolate covered cherries being proudly displayed in the store again, I had to keep from jumping for joy! Looking at those bright red boxes stacked side-by-side on the shelves in the holiday section reminded me of what a fabulous world we live in. A world where someone realized how amazing it would be to cover a maraschino cherry with sugary, liquid goodness and chocolate happiness…aaahhh yes, life is good. Life is beautiful. Life is filled with moments of genius, thanks to people who have learned one of the most important lessons of all.
It’s better to live to eat, than to eat to live.
I finally get the last bag of groceries unpacked and I slam the refrigerator door shut.
It’s cherry time!!!
[SIDE NOTE: Now the best part of opening a box of chocolate covered cherries is doing it when no one else is around, because then you get the first pick. Some of you might not think this is important, but I hate to tell you that you’re sadly mistaken. The first pick is the best pick! It gives you the opportunity to look closely at each chocolate covered cherry sitting snuggly in its little plastic home, so that you can find the one that isn’t stuck to the bottom because it cracked and lost some of the vital sugary substance that keeps it alive. Because everyone knows that the pink sugary serum is the life source of a chocolate covered cherry. Once it starts leaking, things will never be the same. It’s honestly too horrible to describe, so I will just stop there. All I can say is, no cherry deserves to die that way.]
Now, back to my story.
I carefully slide my finger under the lid of the box and lift it open. The first layer is covered with thin plastic that I slowly pull away, while excitedly anticipating the smell of hundreds of meaningless calories wafting up at me.
Nice! I’ve been lucky this time! It’s a good crop with several fine candidates. I can’t go wrong with this batch. I finally select one from the middle of the container – the “heart” of the box. All that’s left now is to finally take a bite.
I carefully put half of the candy in my mouth, knowing that I don’t want to bite into it too quickly. When you do this, there is a risk of losing some of the sugary liquid as it finally breaks free of its chocolate prison. I want to make sure none of the life source ends up on my chin or the kitchen counter. So, I take a gentle bite and I’m justly rewarded.
My taste buds are ecstatic! It’s as delicious as I remember! In fact, it’s even better!!! I’m so happy, that I start dancing around in my kitchen with the other half of the candy in my hand.
Now, at this point, my mind is no longer in control as my senses have entirely taken over. All I know, is that I feel glorious! I want to experience more! And so, before I’m even done with that first bite, I inhale slowly in an attempt to enhance the sweet, syrupy taste in my mouth.
And then…I promptly start choking.
NOOOOO!!!! How could I be so stupid??? Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! You never breathe in when your mouth is full of food! What’s wrong with you?!
In this case though, my rookie mistake is made even worse because the “life source” that so valiantly guarded the cherry I had just bit into was now coating the inside of my throat – and it had definitely gone down the wrong pipe!
In an attempt to force the gooey, sticky substance down, I instantly start coughing…and coughing…and coughing! Gone are the happy, joyful thoughts of chocolate covered cherry day! They have now been replaced with terror and the realization that this may be how it all ends. This is how I’m going to “bite it”.
Seriously?! I’m going to be taken out by a damn candy?! Does this really happen to people?!
Actually, it probably doesn’t because other people aren’t stingy and they don’t refuse to eat their chocolate covered cherries in front of their roommates! They are generous and willing to share, so if by some chance they ARE dumb enough to start dancing around their kitchen and inhale chocolate covered cherry juice, then they have someone there to save them!
The coughing is getting worse and has finally hit a point where my throat is on fire because it’s burning so bad. My body is no longer doing a “happy dance” either, but more of a “thrashing around like a crazy person” movement – kind of like what you see in a club at 2:00am from a group of hysterical women that have had too many tequila shots. I honestly can’t see myself, but can only imagine what the scene must look like to my dogs as they stand off to the side watching with big, brown, puppy-dog eyes.
If I die, hopefully my sister will give them a good life. They deserve to live with someone who isn’t such a moron!
Finally, I start to feel the shellac-like substance beginning to free itself and a little bit of air reaches my lungs again. The coughing is working!!! It’s really working!!!
After another few seconds, the last remaining bits of chocolate covered cherry guts remove themselves from my windpipe and I’m no longer flailing around the kitchen. Instead, I lean over the counter as I try to slow the coughing down. I realize that I’m crying too, which seems like a normal response once you’re faced with “death by chocolate”.
I can’t believe I lived.
I lived!!! I lived!!! I didn’t die after all!!!
Now all I can think about is sharing this miracle with someone who loves me! Shouldn’t they know how close they were to losing me? I need to tell them right away so that we can both appreciate this moment! Even though I’m still coughing, I hurry to find my phone, eager to reach out and find solace in those who love me.
First, I try to call my mom. She birthed me! She is the first person who deserves to know that a murder attempt just occurred on my life!
No answer.
Well, that kind of sucks.
But, it’s okay! I have others!
Next, I try my dad. He’s a doctor! He sees people come into the ER every day that suffer near death experiences! If anyone could understand what I just went through, it would be him!
I get his voice mail.
Hmmm…he must be working. But I totally understand! He’s saving lives! Just like mine was saved a couple of minutes ago! I can’t be mad!
My sister!
My sister lives with me! I should call her! She should know how close she was to finding my poor, sad body on the floor when she got home! Oh! How horrible for her! My sweet, little, baby sister…what a tragedy it would have been.
She doesn’t pick up the first time I try to call, so I instantly hit redial and give it another shot. Adrenaline is still pumping through my veins as I eagerly wait to hear her voice.
Nothing. Another meaningless attempt to share my struggles with someone in my family.
Well, this is starting to get ridiculous!!! Doesn’t anybody care that I almost died??? What the heck?!
I’m now standing in the middle of the living room, pacing back and forth with frustration. And then, it suddenly comes to me.
Ray!
I can call my brother Ray! He loves chocolate covered cherries just as much as I do! He should know about their violent nature!
My heart is pounding as I find his number in my cell phone and start to dial. It rings only a couple of times before he picks up.
“Hey! What’s up?” he says nonchalantly – not realizing the great importance of this phone call.
“Ray!” I yell into the phone. “Ray! Thank goodness you picked up! I’ve been trying to call everybody and no one is answering their phones!”
“What’s wrong?” he instantly asks. I can hear the nervousness in his voice. Finally! Someone is worried about me!
“You’ll never believe what just happened!” I respond. “I seriously almost died! I choked! I couldn’t breathe! It was awful!”
“You choked?! Oh my God! Are you okay? What happened?!”
I definitely have his attention now.
“Well,” I start to say. “It was crazy! I was standing here in the kitchen eating a chocolate covered cherry and it just happened out of nowhere!”
“Wait…,” Ray says with a slight smirk in his voice. “Are you telling me you almost died eating a chocolate covered cherry?”
“Yes!” I cry back into the phone. “Yes! That’s exactly what I’m telling you! I bit into it and got all happy, but I wasn’t thinking! So, I kind of breathed in and the liquid stuff got stuck in my throat! It was awful!”
My moment is here. The truth is out! What will my brother do with this upsetting news….???
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Are you kidding me? That’s hilarious!!!” he finally says.
Apparently, Ray has lost sight of why I’m calling.
“It’s not funny!” I scream into the phone! “I was choking!!! I couldn’t breathe!!! It took forever for me to stop coughing!!!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I can’t believe you did that!”
Not only is his laughter mocking me, but so are his words! How could he not see the seriousness of the situation?!
Maybe calling him was a mistake. But how could that be true? I’m his sister! He should be grateful I’m sharing this experience with him!
“So, what did you do?” he finally asks. It doesn’t seem like a sincere query though, considering he is still laughing his head off.
“NOTHING!” I shout out. “There wasn’t anything I could do! I just had to keep coughing until the gooey part finally went down!”
And then, as I hear myself trying to explain to my brother what really is a totally ridiculous scenario, I begin to feel the urge to laugh too.
“Ray!” I yell at him. “Listen to me! It’s not funny!”
But who was I kidding. It was hilarious! And at this point, I can no longer try to keep it down. I start giggling too, until tears are streaming down my face again. This time though, at least they are “good tears”.
“I can’t believe you almost died eating a chocolate covered cherry!” my brother keeps saying. “That’s just wrong! Don’t you know you’re supposed to chew your food before you swallow it?”
“I didn’t even have a chance to swallow it though!” I try to explain to him between laughter. “I took a bite and started dancing around because it tasted so good! And then, I was so excited that I took a breath in. That’s when it happened!”
“You started dancing around?” Ray asks, laughing even harder now. “Aaaahhhh! That’s too funny!”
“I couldn’t help it!” I say. “Sometimes, I do a little dance when I like my food! I can’t control it!”
“Yes you can!!!” Ray responds. “You can eat your food like an adult and not like a little kid! Dancing around with a chocolate covered cherry in your mouth…man!!!”
“Hey!” I exclaim, trying to get back to the reason I called. “I almost died! Wouldn’t you have been sad? That would have sucked!”
Ray’s laughter finally starts to slow down at this point. Kind of.
“You’re right sister.” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m really glad you didn’t die. That would have been horrible.” [insert some still obvious chuckling here]
“Yes, it would have!” I say indignantly. “But none of you would have cared anyway! Because I had to call four people in our stupid family before one of you finally answered the phone!”
“Hey! We care!” Ray yells back. “I care! I actually answered! And you know what else? I’m going to do something for you because I care so much.”
“What’s that?” I ask hesitantly, yet hopeful that my brother was going to try and honor me in some way.
“Well…” he says slowly. “I’m a little worried about you having that box of chocolate covered cherries in your house. It’s dangerous. You should just mail them to me. I will eat them for you, so that you don’t have to be scared of them. I can do that. For you.”
“SHUT UP!” I cry out into the phone.
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
“I’m going to go now!” I try to spit out without laughing even more.
“Okay!” Ray responds. “But try not to kill yourself between now and the next time we talk! HAHAHA!”
“Whatever! It was an accident!” I say.
“Oh, I know!” Ray says. “Who else would willingly die eating a chocolate covered cherry?! HAHAHA!!!”
After I finally hang up with my brother, I look at the phone and reality hits.
I’m never going to live this down.
UGH!!!
My throat is still hurting a little as I walk back into the kitchen. I see the box of chocolate covered cherries still lying open on the counter.
Interestingly enough, they still look really good.
Why would I even want one after everything that just happened? One of their kind tried to kill me! I should probably just stay away from chocolate covered cherries forever.
Or…I could conquer my fear now, before it gets out of control! I could show those chocolate covered cherries that I’m someone to be reckoned with!
I slowly reach my hand into the box and pull out another fine specimen.
As I lift it to my mouth, I think to myself, “What the hell? It’s not like the same thing could happen twice. Right?”
But this time, I decide to refrain from dancing and eat the precious candy like an adult.
Ray would be proud.
(Originally posted May 2014)
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Encoding the Aliens
As some of you already know, last weekend I decided it would be a good idea to see a scary movie. Now, by no means am I against scary movies. I actually love them! The problem is (and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this), it’s really hard to find a great scary movie anymore. A “scary movie” is defined so much differently now than it used to be, and most of the time instead of being scared, I’m just grossed out. Haha!
Anyway, my husband (Heath) and I had heard that “VHS 2” was actually a pretty good take on a scary movie and that we should watch it. Now, here’s the thing. I’ve already heard from several people that “VHS 1” was better. Well, I saw “VHS 1” and I agree – it had some good moments. This is why I was willing to watch the sequel. But, before I go on, I have to make an admission as to why I knew this particular sequel might be “scarier” than normal (at least for me).
It has aliens in it.
I know, that sounds stupid. Who’s scared of aliens right? They aren’t even real (are they???) and they’re small and grey with big black eyes. What could they even do to me?
Well, people. According to abduction stories they can do plenty of horrible things to me!!!
I seriously hate them. Always have, always will.
Now, this hatred/fear really did start from a young age. And as many of you are probably thinking now, I was mocked for it even back then. I can actually remember being about 10 years old and going into the bathroom to brush my teeth, only to be greeted by a picture of an alien taped to the mirror with a comment balloon coming out of its mouth that said “Andee I’m coming for you!” Yes, that lovely visual was provided by my wonderful younger brother Ray who was hiding around the corner laughing his little 6-year-old butt off.
So cruel.
Anyway, back to the movie.
I knew that aliens would make an appearance at some point because I saw the trailer. Heath actually wanted me to be sure I could handle it because sadly, in the past, he was the one dealing with the brunt of my fear after being awoken in the middle of the night by either (A) me screaming in my sleep, or (B) me purposefully waking him up because I’ve woken up and can’t go back to sleep due to the fact that there are “little grey aliens dancing in my head”. Alas, all his prep work would do no good later in the night, but we’ll get to that later.
After seeing the trailer, I was sure this would be the time I was going to beat the alien fear once and for all. So, I didn’t hesitate for a moment and told Heath that “VHS 2” was definitely on the to-do list for the night.
Now, I don’t believe in spoilers (although my brothers, Joey and Ray, will full-heartedly believe that even saying there are aliens in the movie is a spoiler – sorry!), so I won’t go into any detail about the story around the aliens. I will just say that yes – they did make an appearance. And yes, it was horrible.
Ugh.
So, what do you do after watching a scary movie that you know you never should have watched in the first place? Well, you make your husband watch at least three other funny things on TV before going to sleep because that will protect you from the “bad thoughts”.
Fast-forward three hours later and Heath and I head up to bed. And you know what? I’m feeling good! I’m not scared at all! I totally kicked that alien thing in the butt! Woohoo! And not only that, but Heath reminded me as we walked up the stairs to our bedroom about his superior training from the Army, and how that would ensure nothing could ever come into this house and hurt me.
My hero.
So, we went to bed and all was well in “Casa de Aragon” – as my dad calls it.
And then…I woke up.
Now, I have to admit that I had no idea what time it was because I NEVER look at the clock in the middle of the night anymore (damn you “Exorcism of Emily Rose”!), but it was dark. Really dark. What I can say though, is that I had been having an awful “can’t remember a thing about it because that’s always how it works” dream, and what actually brought me out of it was “a noise”, so I had that heart-pounding thing going on.
Well, it turns out that the noise was Heath. He must have been dreaming because he was twitching in his sleep and mumbling to himself. I think he was having a little “VHS 2 aftermath” going on too, but he’ll never admit it!
Anyway, he was making noise and he woke me up from a pretend dream world into a very real scary one. And you know what? All I could think of was those stupid aliens! So, obviously, I had to wake him up too.
But, here’s the thing. He won’t wake up. I was shaking him really hard too!
“Heath! Heath! Heath!” I was crying out, as I shook his shoulder and his arm as hard as I could. But no luck. My husband, my “protector” mind you, was out cold. And even if he was having some sort of “VHS 2 aftermath” dream, he didn’t seem to be bothered enough by it to hear my voice or feel me clawing his body in desperation. I was SOL.
So, visualize this…I’m in bed freaking out that aliens are already on their way to our house, and I finally realize I have no help. They could totally just walk/fly/float into our room, grab me, and take me back to their spaceship and Heath would never know. Because HE WON’T WAKE UP!!! How awful is that?! I’m all alone! I have no protector!!! I can’t even rely on my dogs for help because our Blue Heeler “Hank” is deaf, our 12-year-old dog “Ditka” is too grumpy to even care, and our Westie “Lex” loves EVERYONE but me, so he would actually want to go with the aliens because they look like super fun and anyone is better than boring “mom”.
All I can think of is that this is how it’s going to end. They’re coming for me and no one will ever know.
So dramatic, huh? Well! Can you blame me?! I watched an alien movie people!!! How am I supposed to think like a grown-up when it’s the middle of the night and my husband and dogs are willing to let me become the next “Betty Hill”?
But, I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel yet. After about ten minutes of laying in fear, I was ready to give it another shot. I started shaking Heath again.
“Babe! Babe! Wake up!” I said, while simultaneously throwing my entire weight against his shoulder as hard as possible so he couldn’t stay in the “VHS 2 aftermath” world.
“Yeah?” Heath finally said in a sleepy voice.
“I’m scared.” I replied in a super sad voice, because that works with him sometimes. “I had a bad dream and woke up and all I can think about is that movie.”
Now at this point, it seems like Heath is on my side. He starts shifting in the bed and turns his neck to look back at me.
“It’s going to be okay.” he says in a normal voice.
“But, I’m freaked out!” I reply, but I’m happy. I finally have his attention. He’s going to come through after all.
And then it happens. The next words out of his mouth help me finally realize just how alone I really am.
“It’s fine.” he quickly says, as he turns his entire body over and looks straight at me with a serious look. And what comes out next floors me.
“Unless…” he says, “Are you scared that the encoder isn’t working?”
What???!!!! The encoder?! Is this seriously happening?! Is my video engineer husband dreaming about work and talking to me like some sort of work buddy?! He’s still asleep!!!! I’m talking to a zombie!!!
AAAAAHHHHH!!!!
That actually is how I responded.
“What are you talking about!” I yelled. “You aren’t even making sense! I’m totally scared right now and you’re talking about work stuff!”
“No, no.” he says in a normal voice (I swear anyone else would have thought he was wide awake too). “I understand. Maybe it’s just that you’re scared about the pro-stream.”
What the heck is a pro-stream????!!!
I honestly still don’t know. Even after recounting this story to Heath the next morning (he thought it was hilarious by the way), he never explained to me what an encoder or a pro-stream were. He just laughed and said he must have been dreaming about work.
Well, duh?!
Needless to say, after that very brief “Video Engineer 101” training, Heath fell back to sleep and I laid awake in bed until the sun started coming up. No sleep for me. But, you know what, it was all my fault. I should have never watched that movie! I should have known that you can’t kick a fear that easily! Not when it’s been haunting you for 30+ years!
But most of all, I should have known that even when you’re married to a bad-ass ex-Army guy, it won’t ensure that they won’t be tired after a long work week. So, as much as you want them to, they can’t protect you from the aliens. And you know why?
Because they have a deadline. And if that encoder and that pro-stream don’t get wrapped up, it’s going to be bad.
But, at least that stuff happens during the light of day.
It’s the aliens that come out at night.
(Originally posted October 2013)