"The Two Second Delay"
by Brian J. Hubbard
November 24, 2000
Once again I sauntered off to the kitchen to, as I always explain to Sharron, to see what's happening'. My version of a happening is non-chalantly walking to my computer in the back room and, while passing through the kitchen, pausing to see' 'if there happens to be anything interesting, overeating or no overeating. This particular Sunday evening, we had just completed the first course of take-out Chinese food, the course consisting of egg rolls, Pork Lo-Mein and Orange Chicken. I don't know about you, but I absolutely adore my egg rolls bathed with a smattering of Chinese hot mustard, a generous smattering that is. However, when I ask Sharron for a generous smattering, I think we may have a different idea of what generous means, one of these days we may break down and buy a dictionary to see if we can agree on the term.
As usual, I was still a wee bit hungry, and since the MSG still hadn't kicked in yet, I even had the energy to explore the kitchen counter where the leftover fragrant aromas were coming from. I happily not only found the carton containing the orange chicken, but also, very much to my liking, found that tiny cylindrical container about only an inch high that contained the hot mustard as well. To me, this was a great discovery for the simple reason that to find something that small is not a very likely happenstance in the woeful life of a sightless man's.
I think the only reason they now have tooth paste caps that are permanently attached to the tube of tooth paste is there must have been a blind people's lobby. With my usual gentleness so not to disturb Sharron so she wouldn't once again rush after me with cute little adjectives like gluttonous or whatever, I pried that little cover off the container. I stuck my little pinky into the container, only this time it was the pinky of the right hand since I needed to hold the container steady with my left hand. I stuck that pioneering pinky into the container and it without a doubt was crystal clear that son-of-a-gun of a container contained smoking hot mustard was only about a millimeter deep. I was absolutely certain about the reliability of my hot mustard measurement, except for one thing that would haunt me in the future.
I should have remembered from physics lab, or at least one of those makeshift carpentry workshops given to me by my father who could hardly bang a nail that the most reliable to measure the depth of anything is to have the measured substance on a flat surface. This is especially true for a blind idiot like myself who cannot actually see whether he is holding a container of liquid straight or tilted. I especially should have been aware of this little flaw of mine after for many years having been chewed out by fraternity brothers for spilling beer on their mud stained carpets because I was giving some cute little co-ed a beaver shot, disallowing my restricted field of vision to ascertain that I was dripping a stream of beer from a mug that was tilted at a forty five degree angle.
Thinking, therefore, that there was only about a millimeter deep amount of that hot yellow liquid, I casually emptied that container into the other orange chicken container that was resting flatly on the counter. I presume I did get an accurate measurement of the orange chicken because I happened to think about the reliability of measurements on a flat surface. I still don't understand why I forgot to take that into account for the mustard measurement, I must have been distracted by the Christmas tree that we had put up earlier and how cute it was that our two cats had pulled off all the tinsel. Of course, I couldn't see how much hot mustard had emptied into the container by looking at it, but let me tell you, when I put that put that first unmerciful forkful into my mouth, I got a very good idea how much mustard I had emptied in there.
It is amazing how estimates can be so unbelievably accurate in the times of greatest duress. You see, when one applies a generous smattering of hot mustard on anything, egg rolls or whatever, the sensation against the palate, for safety's sake, should not be a wet sensation, but, rather, a dry one if one wants to enjoy the unique taste of Chinese hot mustard without peeling a couple of layers from his mouth's rooftop. However, when I put that fork in my mouth and not only felt moisture, but felt moisture as if it were equivalent to a tablespoon full of chicken broth that well exceeded the depth of that one millimeter, I knew I was in serious trouble.
Actually, however, immediately after I put that unforgiving forkful into my mouth, something very amazing happened. There was a suspension of time, sort of like what you read about in those near-death experiences. In retrospect, the time suspension was only for about two seconds, but it was absolutely amazing how long that two second delay seemed and how so much stuff incredibly happened. It reminded me a bit the way that things seem to go in slow motion in those NFL instant replays when one is confronted with a life threatening experience. I had read in one of my favorite plays, Equus by Peter Shaffer, that the mind is an amazing thing. We can perhaps explain through logic how thought patterns flow from one connected thought to another, but no one can truly explain why a particular thought bubbles up into our conscious awareness.
Well, during that two-second delay immediately after putting that cursed forkful into my poor mouth which immediately lost its roof, an incredible flashback burst keenly into my blunted field of awareness. I immediately saw a full-blown page of Hank Ketchum's Dennis the Menace, a page I hysterically witnessed as a ten-year-old kid. In this particular issue, Dennis had just won a trip to Hawaii, and in this one frame, Ketchum had devoted an entire page, approximately ten times larger than the typical frame used for comic books. What had just preceded this frame was Dennis dumping a full bottle of tabasco (thinking it was ketchup) on to his Polynesian food while his poor father was looking the other way at one of those gorgeous native girls wearing one of those grass hula skirts and perhaps only leis covering their firm round breasts.
In that frame, Alice, Dennis's mother, was suggesting to her husband that perhaps he shouldn't eat the spicy items on Dennis's plate because she understandingly was not looking at those same natives. Dennis's father just patronizingly chuckled with an admonishing rebuff, simply stating that she should know how he likes his food a little on the "zippy" side. When the reader arrives at the next notorious frame covering the full page, he is confronted with a tortured face with flames shooting out of the nostrils as well as all other facial orifices. Not only had the glasses come flying off his face due to internal combustion, but his eyes are literally popping out of his head due to the same phenomena. In other words, there is no doubt that the poor guy is in agony, but the reader can laugh because it is only, after all, a comic book.
This is the image that popped into my brain right after I popped that fork in, only this time I was not laughing, far from it. After those two seconds, the inferno kicked in. At first I heard popping noises, a little like what it sounds like when corn is popping, and I was truthfully uncertain what the origin of that noise was. For a frightening moment, I worried that I blew out my two hearing aids, and that really worried me because those things cost about $1500. I still have my hearing aids, so that couldn't have been it, but I still wonder those weird sounds were, perhaps some brain cells short-circuiting? Then the awful pain hit, and it hit very hard. The worst thing about overwhelming pain is that it overtakes you, the trauma actually paralyzing you into terrible indecision. The pain was so overwhelming I couldn't tell where it was the worst, but, let me tell you, the roof of my mouth and my nostrils were definitely the two front runners.
All I can say about my nostrils is, well, did you ever laugh so hard with your mouth full of Coca-Cola that the cola has only one to escape to prevent you from choking, that poor place being your nostrils? Do you remember the burning sensation in your nostrils after that horrible incident? Well, that's how my burnt nostrils sort of felt, except the pain was multiplied by about a thousand and the area was spread to the roof of my brain as well. And what made the roof of my brain feeling like it was on fire so interesting was that the floor of my brain incredibly seemed to connect with the floor of my mouth, giving me the illusion that my whole head was one of those cavernous caves that was on fire in The Swiss Family Robinson. I think it has something to do with one of those illogical laws that the whole seems to be greater than the sum of its parts during times of excitation.
The only good thing I can say about this self-induced torture is that it finally did come to an end. The problem is that the same laws of tortured experience still apply and that five minutes of the comedown stage of the torture seemed like five hours. I must have downed about five glasses of water, and my cats must have thought I was eating something very good because they were frantically circling between my legs for some of that wonderful stuff. So what is the lesson here? I am tempted to give you some metaphysical reply, something to the effect of getting into the moment, but I am afraid I will have to provide something more basic. Whenever you measure something with your finger and either your eyes are shut or you are in a dark room, put that container on a flat surface.
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