Coffeeneuring Ride 3--Votes and attempts at dislodging chips from throats

Coffeeneuring 2020--Ride 3 Saturday October 24, 2020

So, I guess I need to take a potato chip eating class. Apparently I forgot how to swallow multiple chips at one time correctly. Yeah, I've had the dorito stab the top of my pallet and take forever to heal, but today was different. I had gotten into a bag of salsa verde tortilla chips after working on the van, and, with wild abandon tore into the bag, forgetting how to chew correctly. As I went to swallow, there it went--right to the right side of my throat. And it was not going to move. After multiple hard swallows and attempts to dislodge it, I took a break and laid down, very irritated in every sense.

As I laid down to take a quick nap, if I laid on my left side, I was fine, but I'm a toss and turner, so changing to the right brought on a coughing fit that I haven't had in some time, so it was time to hit the Internets and look up the recipes on how to get this damn thing unstuck and down the esophagus.

We all know where looking up home remedies lead. Usually to webMD, which make creates a rabbit hole that sends us all to either heart attack, stroke, uncurable cancer, or COVID. Luckily, I don't believe everything on the internet, only facebook. phew.

So, after multiple ice cube crunches; swigs of olive oil, bread dipped in peanut butter, peanut butter by the spoonful (which allegedly will stick to the foreign object and pull it down) and a few other goofy tries, (not limited to finger swipes, believe me) I decided it would probably be stuck there forever, or at least until the saliva dissolved it, but who has time for the body to work something out of you?? :)

Back to the internets. There it was. Steaming hot beverages may help open the throat a little bit and relax the muscles in the throat allowing the foreign object to move down the esophagus. Hot things like coffee.

Trip three was a go, even if it was under some pretty windy conditions from whatever hurricane was left over from this week.

We also took advantage of our ability to vote early at the polls. I think we'd done this before in 2016. A quick stop to the polls for some sanitized pens to fill out our ballots and off we went to a nearby Starbucks to grab a Caramel Crappacino and a Salty Caramel Macchiato. Mine was hot, of course.

Somehow, some way, the chip MOVED to the center of the throat, deep down. Better I guess, but not completely healed. I guess maybe there is some semblance to what we read on the internet, but for the most part, my finger after drinking coffee (and almost vomiting it up--does the ride still count if you lose your cookies?) may have been the culprit.

Happy to say, all is well now, with the exception of the irritant in the throat recovery phase and thinking all the time whether it was caused by Covid19.

Ended up being a pleasant, albeit windy ride back, but Rob and Jen got ride 3 in the books.