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The near Death of a Twinkie
The near Death of a Twinkie
So the other night, after Da Man had returned home from his first drill with our state’s National Guard, the family was out in the backyard. Now see, when you’re sitting in our backyard, you’re forced to participate in conversation with the Twinkies next door; it’s inevitable.
Da Man was standing in the middle of the yard, talking with Ding Dong, the king Twinkie, not out of respect or adoration but rather because he was the last one in the race for an empty spot on the porch swing; the swing is the only source of cover from the Twinkie’s always searching eyes, you see. Suddenly I hear Da Man ask, “You alright, Ding Dong?” Then, as he was rapidly moving down the sidewalk, he said, “Fuck, Daisy, Ding Dong just passed out.” And thus begins our adventure…but I feel as if I should provide a bit of background information first.
See, the Twinkies aren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack. In fact, the brain current of the entire house probably wouldn’t keep a goldfish alive. They blow things out of proportion. They tell half-or three quarter-truths. And, to hear them tell it, they have the best luck in the world; problem is, it always seems to roll over on them. Take, for instance, the report we received over the wall a couple of months ago: Ding Dong went to the mental health doctor and was told through a blood test that he had an 85 % blockage of his heart. The report, as told to us, was that his blood looked like big chunks of raw hamburger in his veins.
Now, when asked when he was going to go to a physician that dealt with the body and not the mind, we were told that he couldn’t get a doctor because he didn’t have insurance. Mom referred them to her previous place of employment. And told him that he had Medicare, which would cover him. Oh no, no, no, mom didn’t understand.
Besides the fact that it has provided me with plentiful witty--and, admittedly, maliciously uncalled for jokes, the raw hamburger in the veins diagnosis from his friggin’ shrink didn’t hold water with me. Call *me* crazy. Ha. But, we were witness to him falling down and rolling around on the ground one night after exerting himself with running ten steps across the street. Mom was trying to move her car at that point in time, the car in which he threw himself down behind. And she, the most tolerant of the Twinkies, told him to get up and stop acting like an idiot. So he did.
And now back to our adventure….
I yelled for mom to call 911. “No, no, no,” screamed Mama Mullet, “he’s fine. He’ll be okay.” What I saw when I looked over the fence was a man who was not going to be fine. Maybe I overreact when I see a grown man lying face down on a table, clutching his chest, but I thought it merited a call for an ambulance. Mom, however, chose to listen to Mama Mullet, Queen of the Hostess Factory, next door.
By this time, Da Man was next door, attempting to sit Ding Dong up in the chair. Mama Mullet was mentally spinning, stooped over, asking Ding Dong, her husband, if he wanted a drink of water or something. Da Man barked at her to move. And move she did! She started flapping her arms like a damned hen whose nest was being disturbed and saying all kinds of stupid things.
Finally Da Man was able to partially sit Ding Dong up in his chair. I was over there by that time and again yelled for mom to call 911. Upon hearing Mama Mullet begin her chant of “no, no, no,” I told her to shut up. Mom called the ambulance and Da Man began talking to Ding Dong and “mentally evaluating,” as Da Man in his best heroic tone described it, him. All of a sudden, Ding Dong found his voice and began screaming that “it hurt(s), it hurt(s),” while clutching his chest. The next voice was that of Mama Mullet’s: “Oh, Ding Dong, you can’t make me ride in the ambulance with you, you can’t. Did you hear me, Ding Dong? I can’t ride in the ambulance with you this time. I’ll go next time, okay?” And yes, I realize that her childlike mind was in shock, but that didn’t change my perspective of her being a blubbering idiot, one brain cell short of a babbling monkey. Finally, I told her that she needed to help me move shit out of the way so the ambulance could get to her husband.
And shit it was. I moved boxes of parts that at one time belonged to something mechanical. I moved a big four? Five? Six? Foot broom that the son, Suzy Q, brought from the ball field. I moved all kinds of shit- just to make room for the paramedics.
And Da Man? He stood there, attempting to keep count of Ding Dong’s pulse and calm him down while Mama Mullet did her “how fucked up is this for me” dance. I gotta give it to Da Man, he was at the top of his game that night.
I went to get a shirt for Ding Dong. When I reached the door, the daughter, Cupcake, was standing there, leaning against a makeshift shelving unit, bawling. I took her into my arms and told her to pull herself together and help me so the paramedics could help her dad. She found a shirt for me and I sent her to my yard to escape the strange scene outside in her yard.
The fire truck made it here without a problem. The ambulance, however, got lost, which makes me a bit uneasy, truth be told. Mom was running up the street, flapping her arms like an ostrich attempting to take off in flight, trying to get their attention. I was standing in front of Ding Dong, flapping my arms like an ostrich realizing that there was no way in hell I was ever going to fly but decided to give it a try anyway, trying to get their attention. They finally found us.
From here the story kind of dies down. Da Man immediately left the Hostess Factory as soon as the paramedics arrived. Mom was next door with the girls and Cupcake. And I was standing in the street, staring at Mama Mullet, and wondering how the hell she has gotten this far in life. She was bawling and squalling and trying to talk to her mother on the phone. She was turning around in hysterical circles. And I couldn’t take it anymore. I yelled at her to get the van keys so mom could go and get her mom to help her at the hospital. And I told her to get in mom’s van so I could drive her to the hospital.
And I spent almost an hour there with her, attempting to calm her down. But then something strange happened. I started to like her. As we were sitting there in the waiting room of the emergency room, I forgot about the fact that she is the complete polar opposite of me. I also forgot that she tends to attempt to drown me in bullshit every time she opens her mouth. And I began to feel a bit sorry for her because her husband was there in the emergency room and she had no earthly idea what to do about anything.
Mom finally arrived with Mama Mullet’s daddy, just as she was coming into the waiting room to tell me what the doctor said. She was crying, but not uncontrollably, and told us that he had had a heart attack and they were taking him to surgery. I quickly relieved myself of my neighborly duties, dying to get outside so I could laugh my ass off at my mom’s Buckwheat look when I told her I was going home. As I was walking out the door, I happened to look down and see a dime on the floor. I picked it up and carried it back to Mama Mullet, telling her that I had just found it. I told her that it must be her lucky dime and to rub the president’s head every time she got nervous. And then I left. I even asked The Universe to forgive me for calling Ding Dong a “lazy worthless ass” just a few minutes before he passed out.
I came home and helped Da Man get the girls to sleep. Grace was keyed up because she knew something “bad” had happened but couldn’t quite get her head around the whole thing. Mak was keyed up because Grace was keyed up. Mom came home a bit after midnight. They had done a heart cath and found no blockages or any problems. And Ding Dong was released from the hospital the next day.
Of course, mom said, when they went back to see him, his version of the story was that he had three blockages in his heart and put three stints(spelling?) in, which did not happen. And they came home with a diagnosis of a heat stroke, so no one is sure now about the heart attack thing. But I thought the whole thing was sort of…what’s the word…humbling (?) for them. They acted a bit different for a while after he got home.
But it took just one conversation over the fence for me to realize that I hadn’t started liking them but rather had felt pity for the brainless wonders. And that realization hit when Mama Mullet told us that she had told the doctor that Ding Dong had been unconscious for ten minutes before we got over there--Da Man saw him pass out. And, upon witnessing Ding Dong’s rather solemn thank you to Da Man for saving his life, I beat Da Man over the head a few times while saying, “Why *smack* did *smack* you *smack* have *smack* to *smack* do *smack* that *smack*?”
So life’s back to normal here in my abode next to the Hostess Factory. We spend night after night hiding on the porch swing in hopes of avoiding any interaction with them. We sit in silence and take the purpose out of the word “Swing” because we don’t swing; we sit there, feet firmly planted on the ground, not wanting to take the chance of it squeaking and outing us. And we sit there in hopes of staying out of the glare of their Christmas lights that are strung around the un-inflated inflatable pool that he is now using as a fish pond because his $3 roll of plastic sprung a leak.
*sigh*
posted on June 12, 2008 11:30 AM ()
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Sounds like quite the adventure..
That's some adventure! 
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