Relative Something

I don’t really feel like telling this story. I’d rather that the memory of it just go away. It was unpleasant, to say the least, but it’s just the kind of experience that I would write about, so here goes nothing…

Sunday night, after a scrumptious dinner that Cyndie’s mom prepared, we were enjoying her fresh-baked apple crisp for dessert by the fireplace. After my very last bite, I took a refreshing swig from my cup of ice water.

My favorite drink in the whole wide world is water. I gained a huge amount of respect for drinking water after experiencing a kidney stone some thirty years ago. I move through phases of drinking water with, or without ice. Lately, I have been preferring it with ice. I like to let the ice get soft and when the water is gone, slowly consume the pieces, one after another.

I took in a few ice chunks with that swig of water after my apple crisp, and was letting them crumble under the weight of my teeth. That is when I noticed an unpleasant taste. For a second, I was reminded of a time I bit into banana bread that hadn’t been mixed thoroughly before baking, and having hit on an unfortunately large pocket of undissolved baking soda. I hate when that happens. Kids, don’t forget to mix in the baking soda really well.

I wondered if this could have happened with the apple crisp I just enjoyed. This is how the brain works. My brain, anyway. Maybe I’m a little slow. I then wondered —and keep in mind, this is all in a span of a couple of microseconds— could a piece of rotting food or an infected tooth have just come loose in my mouth?

Then, among the remaining honey-combed ice crumbles tumbling between my teeth, my tongue found a foreign object. In way less than a microsecond, my brain conjured an image that matched what my tongue was feeling, and my fingers jumped to extrication mode, plucking the foreign object from my mouth and throwing it on the empty plate setting on the end table beside me.

I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to know what I suspected just happened, had really happened. From a distance, I could see what was on my plate.

Ladybugs, or Asian Ladybird Beetles, make a strong showing around our house in the fall. For the most part, we just tolerate their presence. Our home is a rather dry place in the winter and the beetles tend to die of dehydration when they get inside. However, there are always a few hardy ones that survive and make a general nuisance of themselves.

Quite possibly, this now-deceased trouble maker thought he had found a way to stay hydrated and alive. I’m really sorry to say that I unknowingly squashed that plan.

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