If you are anything like me you have zero self-control when it comes to peanut butter. Creamy, chunky, natural, processed, oily or dry – it really doesn’t matter when it comes to my admitted and ashamed ongoing love affair with pulverized and blended peanut guts.
Quite often I carve a spoon directly in to the peanut butter jar and haul out a mound of it and stick it directly in to my mouth – and there is a danger in that.
As best as I can tell peanut butter turns in to cement as soon as it enters your mouth and immediately begins to block your airway. I don’t know if this is some type of biological defense mechanism that peanut butter has developed over time like the spray of a skunk or needles on cacti – but it is easily deadlier than both of those.
Late last year as I was standing in my kitchen in my boxers enjoying a jar of peanut butter I may have gotten overly aggressive and my eyes deceived my mouth. I shoved a heaping spoonful in to my fat face and immediately regretted my gluttonous decision.
The peanut butter sprang in to action of self-preservation and started choking off my breathing tube. At first I thought it was only playing, a quick joke to let me know who’s boss and then it would release it’s deathly sticky grip, I was wrong. As my attempt at swallowing increased, the peanut butter gripped tighter, like a Chinese finger torture it was unrelenting and seriously unfunny.
My mind raced and upon the realization that I couldn’t breathe, panic quickly set in. I thought of some poor soul finding me 5 days later, dead, white as a ghost except for a brown mass dripping out of the corner of my mouth. I thought of the possibility of my dog devouring my entire body to get at the undigested peanut butter. What a scene that would be. My god -I was going to become a Darwin Award Winner.
My only hope at life was to relax. It wasn’t my time, I would not let my asshole friends make what would probably be hilarious jokes at my funeral – I had to fight back. I moved efficiently over to the sink for some reason and as my life flashed before my eyes I began to control my heart and think about the situation. All of the things I still wanted to do and accomplish – like one day I always wanted to finish off a whole jar of peanut butter in one sitting – but that would have to come later, if at all.
I ran the tap, filled a glass with water and tried to drink it. Unfortunately, the peanut butter was so packed in to my mouth and throat the water had no chance of making it through, it simply ran down my body and soaked my boxers and floor. My thoughts turned to what type of liquid does break down peanut butter – and then I realized nothing does, its peanut butter you idiot.
Again, I tried to control myself, breathing at this point was out of the question so I needed to relax. The idea I wouldn’t die was coming in to doubt and the realization that I may die without ever going on a horseback ride was creeping in to one of my bigger life regrets.
Although the total time of not being able to breathe up until this time felt like hours, I am sure it was probably only an hour or two, and soon there was light at the end of the crunchy tunnel. Although water was impervious to Jiff Skippy Teddy Bear whatever, my constant swallowing was slowly starting to break down the gooey mass and I felt a tiny pinhole of fresh air starting to enter my lungs.
I turned around and as my back slid down the lower kitchen cabinets below the sink I felt the hole growing larger and more air rushing to fill my depleted lungs.
I was out of the woods.
I swallowed and swallowed until I no longer had Jiff packed in to every molar and empty cavity in my mouth. I turned to my dog and as she was backing away looking disappointed that my demise was no longer imminent and I shouted for life. “Huzzahh – I am the Peanut Butter King” I cried out in tears of relief with the thought of knowing I had defeated a worthy adversary.
To this day I still buy peanut butter and eat it by the spoonful directly from the jar because I’m an idiot and don’t learn my lesson. But please let his be a lesson to all of you – peanut butter is delicious.