I ducked into the kitchen last night to grab some fruit, and realized that the watermelon stash was getting low. There was still a half watermelon upstairs, so I grabbed it from the fridge and started cutting it up.

My particular approach to cutting watermelon is: quarter the melon, run the knife between the flesh and the rind to separate a big wedge of red deliciousness, and then slide downward from the apex to the base. I then throw these big chunks into a container for later munching.

This sometimes leads to ribbons of what I endearingly refer to as “water melon sashimi”: there is red flesh attached to the rind, which I slice off and often eat while I’m standing there hacking up the rest of the melon.

Well.

Last night, I took a big roll of the sashimi and chucked it in my mouth. I didn’t really chew it. It just kinda slid down. And it got stuck.

The watermelon didn’t cover my trachea, so I was able to breathe normally and talk and everything else. But my body was in fight or flight mode, and it wasn’t a minor annoyance: it was uncomfortable and unsettling. I tried drinking some water and even a hot beverage, at Rhonda’s suggestion. But we decided to go to the ER.

You don’t ever want to go to the ER, but you really don’t want to decide it’s necessary at 9 pm on a weeknight, either. It was pretty crowded. The PA who saw me had me take three meds: Lidocaine, something with magnesium in it, and a third medication that I can’t remember. They were going to do an x-ray as well.

I took the meds and sipped on a ginger ale I got out of the vending machine (while loathe to consume ultra-processed soft drinks normally, in the calculus of choking vs ginger ale, ginger ale will win every time), and in short order I felt the melon slide down. The discomfort receded, and I was back in action. Much to Rhonda’s chagrin, my impish sense of humor returned almost immediately, and I resumed my normal practice of skylarking.

So yeah, the moral of the story is to chew your food. Even watermelon. It too can get stuck on the way down, despite its manifest slipperiness. Live and learn.