Emu Noises

I just read Cracked Chancla's 2 part post about [1] Her new book store, and [2] her near death experience with a Burger King onion.

Her story took me back to the summer of 1995, when I was 15 years old.

Every summer my house was the place where everyone converged during the day. My parents were at work until 6, and we had a basketball hoop in the driveway. Sometimes there would be too many people and things would get out of control... But usually it was just me and a couple of friends playing basketball. Which is what was going on the afternoon that Cracked Chancla's post reminded me of.

We had been playing hard all afternoon and decided to take a quick break. It was myself, Kevin, Ben, and a girl who lived across the street. I thought that Moe Green was there as well, but he claims to have no memory of the incident at all... Regardless, even though some of the character's may be a bit foggy, I remember what unfolded very clearly.

We were eating Popsicles, (Orange popsicles to be more exact) and deciding what to do with the rest of the day. We settled on having a slam dunk contest.

None of us could actually dunk a basketball at the time, so what we would do was get out an old wooden foot stool that my Dad kept in the shed. With a running start you could use that foot stool as a launching pad for a dunk that would make even LeBron James proud... Tara, the girl from across the street would be the judge.

So we put down the Popsicles and got out the foot stool. Kevin went first... He tried to do a 360 dunk but got blocked by the rim. We all laughed as he tried to play it off. "The sun was in my eyes," sure Kevin...

Next up was Ben. He flew off the stool and launched high into the air. I think he was surprised by how high he had gotten because he lost his grip on the basketball just as he was about to throw down his dunk. He hung on the rim in disbelief as the ball rolled down the driveway. So close, yet so far.

Now it was my turn... Because they had both missed their dunk attempts, all I needed to do was complete a dunk, any dunk, and I would win.

As Ben had taken his turn I had resumed sucking on my popsicle... In a show of how effortless it would be for me to beat them, I decided to make my dunk while still eating the popsicle.

"I didn't even have to take the popsicle out of my mouth to beat you guys..." That kind of thing. It was a REALLY dumb idea, but in my defense I was only 15.

I picked up the ball and put the pop into my mouth. I dribbled twice and took off. As I planted my foot onto the stool to propel myself into the air, I could feel it wobble beneath me and turn on it's side. Instead of flying towards the rim, I landed on my ass in the middle of the driveway.

Embarrassed, I jumped up immediately and tried to act like I was fine, but something wasn't right... It was then that I realized I couldn't breath!

At some point during my fall the popsicle broke in half, with the stick and the bottom half of the pop falling to the ground... The top half had lodged directly in my throat!

I tried to swallow it down but I couldn't, it was stuck in there pretty well. I could feel my face turning red and my eyes about to fly out of the sockets. Everyone was just starring at me, unsure of what was wrong.

I tried pointing to my throat to indicate that I was choking on the popsicle, but nobody seemed to get it. (I found out later that they knew what was wrong they were just in shock)

That's when I REALLY panicked! For reasons that, to this day, remain unclear to me, I took off running down the street. Not just running, but sprinting down the street, trying my best to scream... Of course a scream wouldn't come out, just these crazy animal grunts that probably frightened all the neighbors. I don't know where I was going or what I was planning on doing when I got there, I was just running.

Then, finally, mercifully, as I neared the end of the street the popsicle melted just enough for it to slide down my throat and into my belly. It hurt really bad on the way down, but it was better than dying.

I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my face as I gasped for air. As I sat there on the ground a thought occurred to me... "Since the object lodged in my throat was a popsicle, there was never any real danger that I would die... I mean, had I just stood in the driveway another 30 seconds the thing would have melted and slid down my throat anyway..."

"Way to keep calm and level headed under pressure Joel...," I sarcastically thought to myself.

I walked back to my driveway very embarrassed and unsure of what to say to my wide eyed friends. They just starred on in silence.

Finally, Kevin spoke up. "Dude, you sounded like an Emu!"

"What the fuck does an Emu sound like?" Ben asked.

Kevin pointed at me, "like that... An Emu sounds like Joel running down the street with a Popsicle stuck in his throat."

Everyone burst out laughing, even me.