Another Grandma Close Call

I ordered a take-out meal from the Greek restaurant three doors down from the ‘In-A-Spin’ Launderette. Jenny said to make sure Gram gets something to eat.

“Grandma, it’s just lamb, nothing bad, give it a try. You’ve always been adventurous, go on, you’ll love it.”

Grandma picks and prods at the plate in front of her, using her fork like it’s a scalpel.

“Donna’s kebab, you said?”

“Not Donna as in the girl's name, grandma, Doner kebab… as in Greek!”

Why do people leave me with these kinds of responsibility. I sit on the couch, sigh, shake my head, and woof down a chunk of meat. Then I hear mumbling.

“Well, all I can say is, it may be sold as lamb, but then again it may not actually be lamb,” grandma says, still pushing food around suspiciously.

“Well, that’s true of most thing, grandma,” I say, starting to feel a little impatient. “Look, if you’re not as hungry, as you said you were half an hour ago, then…”

“I’m not this hungry!” Grandma snaps, holding up to eye level something squirmy on her fork.

“Then give it over to me, grandma, I’m starving. Jenny will fix you something when she gets home.

“What happened to you, Harry? You were always such a nice young man?”

“Things change, grandma. We move on. We grow old and we die. And if we don’t eat anything, we die a lot quicker than those that do.”

“But…”

“Grandma…are you hungry or not?”

“Maybe…just a little.”

“Then eat! Stop wailing. You’re not on a diet of self-induced starvation?”

Grandma circles the meat around the plate before cautiously stabbing a green chili pepper and inspects it for insects. Now I’ve lost the bloody TV remote. I try recovering it with my sock-clad foot. I stared at the TV, hoping I’d hit the right button with my big toe. When I turn back to grandma, her face is wrinkling, her eyes gone to the back of her head. I jump up in an attempt to stop her choking…but it is too late. The old girl sits in the chair, having swallowed a huge green chili pepper.

OMG, her eyes are wild and piercing. I can sense the pain behind them, the ferocity of the chili pepper burning in her throat, sending violent thoughts to her withered brain. I watch in terrified awe as her weak hands grip the armrests, teeth grinding, floor shaking as she wobbles from side to side in her wheelchair.

She is whining for help. I can’t decide whether to race for water or dive for the phone. I choose the latter, cursing my choice of Greek food as I punch in 9-1-1.

“Ambulance please…what? No…ambulance…my grandmother, she’s eaten a chili pepper and she is choking to death…what… it happened last week! Idiot, of course it just happened! 202 Fore Street…yes above the ‘In-A-Spin’ launderette…what do you mean twenty minutes, she’ll be dead in two! The best you can do…what does that mean, my grandma is riding the lightning here! I understand…be quick…age? I don’t know, anything between eighty and a hundred…she’s pretty damn old, just hurry, okay. I slam down the phone and turned to grandma, now slumping in the wheelchair.

“Oh God, I’ve killed you with a green pepper,” I hear myself yelling, jumping over the coffee table to be at her side. I grab hold of her skeletal hand and try feeling for a pulse.

Nothing.

“Com’on, grandma, Jenny’s going to kill me, and I’ve already paid for flying experience for Christmas,” I moan, shaking her wildly. She isn’t responding.

Oh no, that’s Jenny coming to the front door. The key is in the lock. The door is opening! Jenny enters the living room.

“Harry! What the heck are you doing? You’ll kill her!”

“I’m trying to save her, honey. I think she’s dead already!”

“What!” Jenny cries, pushing me aside.

“I think I killed her with a green chili pepper. I called emergency services, they’re on the way.”

Jenny places an ear to grandma’s chest.

“She’s alive…just. Her pulse is very weak…she’s hanging on.”

“You think she’ll be okay to fly on Christmas?”

“Fly…she’s an inch from the damn grave!”

“But she’ll be okay, right?”

“She’s unconscious. How’d this happen?”

“Well…er, she said she was hungry. I fancied kebab tonight. We were watching TV, so I ordered a take-out from ‘Artburn’… Al’s place down the street. I think she ate a green chili, well more like she swallowed it whole. I didn’t see it, well…just as she put it in her mouth but then it was too late.”

“You gave an eighty-eighty-year-old woman Greek food with chili?”

“You know she likes to try new things, honey. I thought she would like a change.”

In the distance sirens are heard approaching. After pacing up and down, I insist on gathering up grandma and carrying her toward the door. In a fit of panic Jenny lunges to move the coffee table, seeing the tragedy in slow motion, but is too late.

My legs gave way underneath me as I trip forward, watching grandma go airborne, her trajectory has real momentum. She crashes somewhere between the coffee table and the TV set, just missing hitting her head on the corner of the TV stand. Gray’s Anatomy is just beginning.

Jenny screams, climbing over me, slumping over the coffee table, in her attempt to get to grandma. There seems no way the old girl can survive such a hard landing.

“Hell, Harry, now you’ve definitely killed her,” Jenny exclaims, sobbing great sobs. On the TV, Meredith is telling Derek Shepherd that she is about to leave him. Meredith is sobbing too.

“Maybe…honey, but maybe she was already dead before she hit the floor!” I was trying to choose the best of a bad outcome, a painless second death…well, but for her insides charred over a chili fire.

The doorbell rings. Two paramedics are waiting, calling out.

“Anybody home?”

I open the door.

“Hurry, please. grandma is choking or was. I think she’s dead.”

One paramedic, the one who bears an incredible resemblance to President, Joe Biden, looks at his partner after seeing the old girl spread eagled across the floor, one furry slipper gone and chili sauce dripping off the coffee table, filling the other. The second paramedic immediately reaches for his radio.

“Better send the police, looks like a vicious beating!” He says, as if playing the part of Kojak, with his bald head shining.

“What? No…no…she was choking, became unconscious. I was bringing her to meet you, to save precious seconds, and I fell across the coffee table. Ask my wife.”

“Step away, both of you. Let me get a better look at her.”

The paramedic screens grandma takes her pulse and opens a case that contains an E.K.G.

Complete silence.

That’s when Derek Shepherd tells Meredith he is not going to let her leave him.

I reach for the remote to turn down the volume, but not before Derek tells Meredith, “I love you, despite your grandmother, we can make this…”

The TV shuts down.

“Hmmm…very weak, but alive.” The paramedic says. A flutter of relief beat through Jenny’s heart. “Let’s be getting her to the hospital. You two wait for the police. I’ll give them a report over the radio.”

“She has a flying tour over San Francisco on Monday,” I say.

“Honey, please!” Jenny looks at me cold as fucking ice.

“Well, I think she is really looking forward to it, you know,” I say.

“I think she’s done enough flying, honey. Let’s them make sure she’s going to be okay.”

The paramedics gently placed grandma on the gurney as two policemen arrived. One paramedic suggests they get some answers for the bruising on the old girl’s body.

“They called in that an old woman was choking. It looks to me like there are a couple of broken ribs, but she’s breathing. There’s no sign of any obstruction in her throat. Suspicious I’d say,” he tells the cop.

One policeman, the one showing signs of enjoying a huge breakfast, took out his notebook before turning his attention to Jenny who asks about the old girl’s survival chances.

The paramedics go out the door with grandma showing a strange look on her face, as if smiling.

“I’m sorry, madam, we need to get a statement from each of you.”

He is interrupted by a knock at the door. It is Al Pashwa, from the Greek restaurant. Harry looks at him blankly. The officer explains that an investigation is in progress, and asks him what he might know?

Al steps back.

“Nothing…nothing at all. I just came by to say that Harry picked up the wrong order. He asked for Doner Kebab without spices. I hope it hasn’t ruined your evening,” he says.

Jenny looks at me standing there.

I look at Al, and ask, “are you up for a pleasure flight over Christmas?”

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