(4) IT FELT AS IF I'D SWALLOWED THE BLADE OF A KNIFE.

Circa 1994  

  I’ve been hearing some strange tales from fellow members of the golf club. One friend had to contend with a bat that somehow got into her house--down the chimney, perhaps. She managed to shoo the creature into her screened porch and then shut the door. I'm foggy about the details of what happened after that, but the bat ended up on the floor a couple of days later, quite dead, poor thing.

           Another friend noticed a raccoon foraging in her yard. Nervous about the safety of her four cats, Mary began calling them into the house. They came in through the little swinging door constructed for this purpose, and she put food out for them.

   "Wait a minute," she said to herself. "How come I see three gray cats when only two them are gray?” The third gray cat was the raccoon, who was helping himself to a saucer of Friskies. Again, I'm hazy about how she persuaded the raccoon to leave, but he is doubtless waiting for another invitation to dine with Mary's cats.

   Today's story capped them all. Nancy and her family were having a picnic in her yard. When her granddaughter ate only half of her sandwich, Nancy decided to eat the other half. She felt a terrible pain starting at the roof of her mouth and continuing down her throat. It felt like a sharp piece of metal.

   Nancy said to her daughter, "I feel as if I swallowed the blade of a knife.”  She put her finger down her throat, choked up the bite of sandwich, and behold--­a live and very confused bee was sitting on the lettuce and tomato.

  My friend hastily took three antibiotic pills, which she always has with her because she's allergic to bee stings. Her throat was sore and swollen for a couple of days, but otherwise she had no ill effects. I can imagine the bee's side of the story when he returned to his hive. "I was minding my own beezness and enjoying a Bee-L-T when all of a sudden this monster as big as a whale swallowed me in one gulp. I know just how Jonah must have felt!”

  Nancy's experience reminded me of Mom’s "Picnic Fun."

                          
                                     There's nothing the matter with me!

                                      I only got stung by a bee ‑‑                                       
                                      My eye is shut tight, but I still see all right

                                      If I squint with the other the least little mite,

                                      So there's nothing the matter with me!

  

                                      There's nothing the matter with me!
                                       Except for this bruise on my knee,
                                                And the ivy, of course,
                                                 where I sat for a chat,                    
                                      Was the poison variety.  Other than that,
                                         There's nothing the matter with me.

                           
                                         There's nothing the matter with me. 
                                         O, I swallowed an ant with my tea,

                                     But viewed from a properly personal slant,

                                 Though unpleasant for me, it was worse for the ant!

                                            So there's nothing the matter,              

                                               No, nothing the matter,

                                       There's nothing the matter with me!  

                                                   Ernestine Cobern Beyer