"REVENGE OF THE CANTALOUPE"
by: Michelle


I almost died today. Well, actually, I don't think I would have died. Hopefully somebody would have noticed eventually and given me the Heimlich maneuver or something.

But, fortunately, there was no need for that. Though it did come pretty close.

I was peacefully eating my cantaloupe, just like everybody else. I wasn't even talking, which would have made more sense for why I started to choke. One minute I'm happily eating my lunch, the next minute, I can't breathe.

At first, I tried swallowing a couple of times, but then I started to panic. I didn't want to lodge it any further than it already was. So, I got up, in hopes that my friends, who were still chatting about boys and all those other stereotypical things, would notice something was wrong.

Samantha noticed something. But not the fact that I was choking. "What's the matter?" she asked, giving me a weird look.

I started to wave my right hand in a circle, and I pointed at my throat with the other. Elizabeth was like, "Charades?"

It was about then that my gag reflexes finally kicked in, and I hacked it back up on my plate. I leaned over my tray, staring at the small piece of cantaloupe that could have, quite possibly, ended my life. All my friends stared at me. Then Kayleigh exploded, "Oh, my God, I thought you were going to throw up!"

The other four greed, saying things like, "Yeah" and "That's what it sounded like" all at the same time.

"I was choking," I said, making things clear for them. I took a breath. And it felt weird. To say that it felt like I was breathing air for the first time would sound too cliché, but that's kind of how I felt. And I realized then and there, that life is important. That I've been taking too many things for granted. Could me choking on a piece of melon be God's way of telling me that time is running out?

"Are you okay?" Samantha asked.

I smiled and nodded. Even though I knew I wasn't. Nobody else in the lunchroom seemed to noticethat a cantaloupe hadattempted tomurder me. And I was actually kind of happy.

It was a crazy day. And it's kind of funny, because yesterday, after P.E., I told Kurtis I was surprised I wasn't dead yet and, jokingly, I told him that I was kind of disappointed because I had my grave picked out and everything.

And … how weird is it that today, I could've choked to death?

Anyway, I'm just glad I'm alive. This whole story sounds lame, I know. But it's the truth. It really happened to me.

And I've sworn never to eat another cantaloupe again.That's something I'm gonna take pride in telling my grandchildren, if I ever have any.


Author's Note: When I told my mom about what happened at school, she wasn't even surprised or anything. All she did was shrug and say, "You're not dead." Such asympathetic mother, no?