My Costco Adventure

It is time to share how I got everyone’s attention at Costco and a free ride out of their parking lot. All you have to do is pass out on the floor during the Thanksgiving rush and be careful not to be trampled upon by the mob rushing to pick up their $6.00 pumpkin pie. I’m told the crowd cleared a circle around me. I wouldn’t know. I was unconscious, probably planning my afterlife or, at least, the next four years in a comatose state. My first words when I woke were, Is he gone yet?

The drive in the ambulance parted the red sea of shopping carts. When the paramedic announced that I’m having a myocardial infarct I wondered if this was really to be my day of departure. To give up my life at Costco has an ignominious ring to it. As if an homage to consumerism.

My next thought was whether my socks matched and is this the underwear I wanted to take into my next incarnation. It's a sobering moment to think of yourself in the past tense.

As it turned out the well-meaning man in blue spoke out of turn. There were no scavenger birds circling the wagons. I did not have a heart attack but rather a case of syncope and pericarditis. Nothing to sneeze at but neither a cause to round up a zoom memorial. I have miles of pumpkin to eat before I sleep. Apparently, I have some sort of abnormality on my EKG. which he mistook for heart damage. In fact, it has been there for decades and of no consequence except that I embrace my abnormality. Normalcy is overrated. 

My cardiac event earned me the worst turkey sandwich in the history of sandwiches in the hallway of the emergency area of UCLA Medical Center. My loving friend Adele stayed with me for four hours and we got to witness the passing parade of wounded humanity. All that our flesh is heir to is a humbling experience.

My next stop was to be a (nearly) free night at Kaiser hospital. I would be subject to the nocturnal gasps and retches of a sorry roommate, a demented man, down the corridor, moaning all night at high decibels and the conclave of caregivers gathered at the nurse’s station outside my open door.

By now my symptoms were long gone and I was eager to be sprung. I remembered seeing a movie where the protagonist ripped off his I.V. and made his way down a deserted passageway into midnight traffic, probably to avenge the wrongful death of his client’s pet rock. I hope he wasn't wearing his hospital gown open in the back.

I am now home writing this by the fireplace I don’t have unless I set fire to the drapes. I apologize for scaring my family and friends and particularly my daughter Janice. Thank you all for your loving expressions. Hang onto those goodly thoughts. May they have a long shelf-life.