Monday, February 23, 2009

The road to recovery

Last night, I got out of the house for the first time since being sick because as I explained to me beloved Auntie Scoldie, cabin fever is as potentially lethal as regular ol' fever fever. So I went to the Lightning game with The 23-Year-Old and the up-and-coming author who shall be known here as The Up-And-Coming Author.

We showed up at the Will Call window to get the tickets and I questioned aloud whether somebody (me) who just recently almost died should need to stand in line like everybody else. "Excuse me, folks. Coming through. Almost died, just last week. So kind of a big deal. Pardon me. Life is precious to someone like me, so I'm just gonna kind of scoot up here to the front and...okay, you're not moving. That's not really...you know, you wouldn't...is there a Make-A-Wish line here?"
After we eventually got our tickets, we went inside and I inquired about snacks. "Excuse me, do you have any particularly life-affirming concession items for someone who stood on the brink of death's icy embrace?". The guy said, "well, Miller Lite is pretty good. But how exactly do you stand on the brink of an embrace?" I didn't get anything.
During the game, they took time out to recognize wounded war veterans in attendance and I observed, "I guess there are lots of us who are fortunate to be here tonight. Like myself, for example. I almost died last week. But here I am tonight, sitting among you. Pretty brave. Kind of a miracle. Just because I'm not being shown on the scoreboard doesn't mean it isn't amazing because it is. But I didn't come here tonight and expect anybody to make a big ol' fuss over me. I just want to enjoy the game and if anybody wanted to take a second to recognize how incredible it is that I'm here, well, that's on them." The Up-And-Coming Author said, "you really need to pipe down." I pointed out that nobody told John Travolta as "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" to 'pipe down' and The 23-Year-Old said "I wish you were in a plastic bubble. I'd push you down the stairs and you'd roll all the way out into the street". That wasn't very nice.
Later, after I'd forgiven them for being mean, I told them all about the book I was going to write about my experience:

The Up-And-Coming Author said "Is it going to be a short story?" and I said "It's going to be $22.50." I didn't even bother to tell her about my plan to take the profits from that bestseller to finance my next book, a self-help guide:
The Lightning won the game 4-3 when my favorite player, Vaclav Prospal scored the tie-breaking goal on the power play with 1:33 left. It was just like when Babe Ruth hit the home run for that kid in the hospital! At least there was someone there who appreciated the amazingly brave little fella in section 217.

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