Fish bones are crunchy

Let’s face it, konnyaku eaten plain sucks. I mean, blech. But that’s what you get when you’re desperate for something to eat, but you’re determined not to open the freezer, crawl in, and make yourself at home with a pint of Phish Food. Well, nevermind the fact that I haven’t got a pint of Phish Food in my freezer, but you get the general idea.

This must be what happens when you kind of stopped eating dinner the night before because you swallowed a fish bone. First bite, chew, swallow – OH SHIT! Having never done this before (er, the fish bone part), you immediately drop your fork, put your hands around your neck, and start moaning. Your significant other looks at you in alarm. “I swallowed a fish bone” utters from the side of your mouth. You poke your throat where you feel it. This helps. You take a sip of water. Tears fill your eyes. You run to the computer and google fish bone swallow and are instantly horrified by the number of results that contain the words esophagus and perforate, often in the same sentence, along with generally unpleasant descriptions of various procedures used to remove said bone. Meanwhile, significant other hovers, alternating between offering a slice of bread and a lift to the emergency room.

I see one site that says in no uncertain terms not to eat a slice of bread. I push it away as if it is the devil incarnate. I post to all my online friends a frantic cry for advice. They respond with several suggestions, including to drink some vinegar – I suppose the theory being that the vinegar will help dissolve the bone if it’s really stuck. I decide to swill some down, also thinking that if there really is a tear or cut or scrape, the vinegar will burn in that spot like hell, so I can self-diagnose. Right.

Anyway, it didn’t burn beyond the normal battery acid feeling that one gets when one downs undiluted vinegar. The oh-my-god-I’ve-got-a-fish-bone-in-my-throat feeling finally lessened – I’m not talking about the mental feeling here, but the literal feeling in my throat. I decided to wait until morning.

Morning came, and as it took me about 10 minutes to remember that I had swallowed a fish bone last night, I figure I’m ok. Jogging did no harm and produced no sensations of being stabbed by a tiny needle from the inside. I still seem to feel a fish bone phantom from time to time, but I think it’s mental. Fitting, I suppose.

But that’s a very long way of saying that I didn’t eat all of my fish for dinner last night. I have no idea whether that contributed to my insane desire to keep eating for long periods of time tonight, but at least it makes a good story. Dinner was very good, but afterwards came the order from id: must. continue. eating. But what? I really don’t know what possessed me, but I opened the block of konnyaku that’s been sitting in the fridge for a bit. Perhaps it was some subconscious knowledge that plain konnyaku would be truly gross, and that eating a piece of it would put an end to kitchen foraging for the night. At least, that’s what it did.