Jenny doesn’t know this, but I came really close to dying when I visited her in October. Something I didn’t know about Filipinos is they love bones in their meats or at least they are too lazy to remove them. More realistically, it’s just practical. In the United States the only bones we enjoy are ribs and chicken wings. We’re kind of wimpy otherwise and prefer our meats to go boneless because we eat so quickly and are dainty little flowers for the most part.

One night Jenny and I went out for dinner at the “corner restaurant.” It’s called this, by Jenny, since it is in the corner at the mall we went to a few times during our stay. Jenny was the one who did the primary choosing as to where we’d eat since everything looked the same to me. She had never eaten there before so we decided to give it a try. Since the restaurant’s name was in Tagalog it may have actually been called the Corner Restaurant. I’ll let her comment on this for the sake of accuracy.

I got something with beef because I was not allowed to eat chicken; we thought Jenny had an allergy to it. She better write about this sacrifice I made!

Jenny’s entrée was a soup dish with some fish inside. Since she is a polite host who knew what I piggy I am, she offered me some bites/sips of the soup. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the fish inside of it was not boneless. This, as you can hopefully imagine from a pig like me, didn’t turn out so well.

I had a piece of the fish in my mouth. Eager to get it in my belly as fast as possible, because EVERYTHING in life is a race to the finish line, I swallowed. If you’ve ever had something sharp unexpectedly slide down your throat, you’ll know the brief fear I had.

I could feel the bone struggle to get down. Briefly it was stuck in the middle where I had hoped I could spit it back out as I had with other pieces at other meals. By the time I realized there was a bone inside of me (oh, get your mind out of the gutter!) it was too late. That bone was going down my throat and into my stomach.

Jenny could tell there was something wrong. You can’t just hide thinking you’re about to choke to death. I coughed a little and drank as much water as I could to make sure it went all the way down. For the rest of the meal I hoped it was not stuck anywhere.

We didn’t go home immediately after either. We hopped on a Jeepney, an experience that deserves its own blog post, then headed to a spot where there were several other places where we could grab a coffee before heading back.

Eventually we settled at a Krispy Kreme at which point my throat was feeling better, but my colon was beginning to war with me. This was an especially piggish day for us both, me in particular, and my body was fighting back. I had to poop! I had no idea where we were or how far away we were from the hotel. All I knew was that with each sip of my coffee I was one punch to the stomach away from completely evacuating my bowels.

Jenny and I sat in the Krispy Kreme drinking our coffee until the point came where I couldn’t hold it together any longer. I excused myself to head to the bathroom only to find the most horrifying thing inside: no toilet paper.

The bastards! I had gone in there only about 15 minutes earlier to pee and there was plenty of toilet paper. It’s almost as if this was a plan against me. Someone else’s anus had sabotaged the pleasure of my own.

Jenny and I finished our coffees then headed back to the hotel room. I won’t tell you what happened although the police were called after someone reported hearing gun shots coming from our room.

I survived swallowing a bone and having to poop really bad in the matter of about two hours. If my future children ever ask me about what to put on my gravestone, this story should suffice as an answer.