Faint Memories
I crashed my boat against one of the buoys of life last weekend.
I was in a performing arts center in Johnson County, Kansas. I had just taken in a ballet, and now I was standing in the middle of the lobby, watching my wife and mother-in-law thumbing through a coffee table book about cats (don’t ask where the book came from…they just had a book about cats on them at the moment). This went on for a few minutes until I started feeling the woozying (I just invented that word) rush of blood to my head.
This would be a good time to tell you a story about the time I fainted when I was in fifth grade.
It was around this time of year and we were in Morristown on a class trip to see Washington’s campsite. It had just snowed and it was brutally cold outside so my mother dressed me extra warm. My favorite color was blue, so as a kid I always asked for blue jackets and gloves etc. On that day, my mother had me in gloves, boots, thermal socks, scarves, hats — the whole shebang. I basically looked like a little blueberry jawa because all you could see were my eyes.
Anyway, we were in some cabin and the curator of the museum was showing us how they dried their herbs in colonial times. If you don’t know, they dried their herbs by hanging them from their ceiling rafters, upside down and in bunches. The room smelled like you had walked into glass jar of Spice Island curry. The room was about 100 degrees fahrenheit, too. That’s because they had a roaring and I mean ROARING fire blazing in the open stone fireplace.
So I’m standing next to this bonfire, covered head to toe in layers of blue rayon, with a shrubbery of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme in my face. I was completely nauseous, my internal temperature was hovering in levels that rivaled the Earth’s core and it felt like someone had rammed a bouquet garni up my nostrils, which barely peeked over my scarf.
With my oxygen supply cut off, my brain functions were temporarily doomed. I started to experience a whirling sensation that I was powerless to stop. My vision began to dim until I could only see billions of flashing little dots (years later, in college, I would learn that those dots are called “phosphenes”…cool, right?). A tonal sound in my ears began to rise, growing louder and louder. I tried to lift my arms to block the sound, but it was useless…I was…losing power…knees…buckling…
For the first time in my life, I collapsed to the floor in a heap, hitting the hardwood like a boxer who had taken one punch too many — except, in my case, I was knocked out by zesty seasonings.
It was a momentous occasion for me. For on that day, I won wardrobe independence. Never again would I wear extraneous garment layers. And I vowed to take my revenge against marjoram and coriander — a battle I continued and wage to this very day.
So, back in Johnson County, while my wifey and mother-of-wifey are looking over this book, ooh-ing and ah-ing over cats, I turned to my father-of-wifey – who luckily happens to be a doctor.
It was definitely a bonding moment. He recognized at once the look on my face, the look that said, “I used to be a real guy’s guy…my roommates in college and I would fight each other with kegs when we got bored. What happened?”
And he laughed…he laughed that sort of “hahaha, you are soooo married right now,” laugh…the kind of laugh that seems to say “you and your wife will be wearing matching sweaters within months.”
Faded jeans and Rangers jerseys? A faint memory.