Dinner Show

The rain seems to be never ending. I am miserable, the dogs are miserable. Cabin fever is setting in. My back has a catch in it. Right beneath my left shoulder blade. All my joints are staging a protest, and the flu shot arm still aches.


All I managed to accomplish yesterday was to cook a meal and clean the kitchen. Comfort food. Country style steak and gravy, mashed potatoes (I would have preferred rice, but buying 15 lbs. of potatoes dictates that I use them) and peas. The peas were my downfall.

We have no set time to eat here. Check-ins and tow calls interfere and when I find both of us inside at the same time I serve it up. I prepare both plates at the stove and put them on the table. The only constant about our meals would be the presence of our canine children under the table. Oscar is always positioned at my feet. Toni Louise makes herself known and begs relentlessly. Wall-E and Cujo are in the background patiently waiting until the first morsel should be offered.

Last night, I was hungry. I have no table manners to speak of when it is just the two of us. I tend to eat fast and talk all at the same time. Bad habits, both. But I am always in a hurry to complete a thought before I should be interrupted. He Who tows could get a call. While I have him trapped at the table next to me I can talk at a normal volume and be heard. Last night was no different. I was eating and talking ......

I inhaled a pea. I stopped talking and started coughing. I turned to my right, away from my dinner companion and carefully sucked in enough breath to cough. Over and over again, I felt like I was going to cough up my toes. There was Toni Louise, watching me with great intensity as I coughed. When the pea flew out of my mouth, she caught it in mid-air!

After the pea left my body, I was still coughing and made my way to the bathroom as I found that my bladder had failed to hold it's contents. Toni Louise followed along, hoping for another pea, I suppose.

All the while, He Who Eats continued with his dinner. Seems like the dogs were the only ones concerned about my well-being. He did say that he was watching and that he would have performed CPR if the need had come up. I was duly comforted by that.

My throat is sore and I felt something in my back grab me while I was in the throes of expelling the offensive pea.

This is what we call a dinner show in these parts.