Alex was on the subject of award-winning British authors. In the 1930s. I hate that. I'm really old, staring death in the face, dodging the reaper on bad days. But I'm not old enough to remember the 1930s. Still, I consider myself nimble, quick-witted. That means I keep trivia books around and cheat.
The winning question was "who is George Bernard Shaw"? I forget the answer, which is really kind of the question in "Jeopardy," but it had something to do with "Pygmalion." I was clipping my toenails at the time, working over my in-grown honker on my right foot, and I went ballistic at the TV.
"I knew that answer!" I cried. "I knew it. If someone had mentioned Rex Harrison, I would have smoked that answer, baby!"
"Clean up your toenail mess and come to dinner, sweetie," my wife said.
Still stinging from my defeat in final Jeopardy, I cringed when my wife raised a subject that my keen, Jeopardy-slaying mind had missed this summer. She mentioned that my leg of the John Muir Trail hike in August would be preceded by a trip to see my parents in Maui.
"Yeah, so?" I asked. "I'll have a good tan. I will be filled with lattes and fish tacos. What up?"
"Well, the last I checked Maui was at sea level," she said.
"On the mark," I replied. "My love, nothing escapes you. Maui is at sea level because it's on the beach. My toes are tapping now. Where are you going with this?"
"Honey, aren't you climbing a few 12,000-foot passes in August?" she asked.
I almost dropped my toenails. I finally saw what she was getting at. It was like watching a car accident in slow motion. High elevation can give flat-landers a headache, nausea and a lot of other problems. You need to aclimate to the elevation so you don't have those problems. Going from sea level to 12,000 feet in a couple of days might give me a monster headache or worse.
"I am toast," I said.
"No, but you'll need to prepare by taking aspirin a few days in advance," she said, adding that aspirin will thin the blood and reduce the impacts of high elevation.
"But I am still toast," I said. "First I'm down at sea level, then I'm at 12,000 feet. My head will be the size of a pumpkin. I'll bleed out my nose. I'll breathe hard, cramp up, fall over. I'll ..."
"Sshh, dear, don't make a fuss," she said. "Eat your your chicken, and I'll get the children's aspirin. You can start taking it now."
"What? And bleed to death shaving?" I asked. "It will thin my blood."
"You'll be fine," she said. "Put those toenails in the garbage and relax."
I sheepishly dumped my nails and smiled at my own panic. What else could go wrong? I sat down and she looked me in the eye.
"There's something else you should be thinking about too," she said.
Now I was worried. I can't bring myself to tell you until the next blog entry. Sorry. If Diana Marcum can give you a cliff hanger, so can I.
