I just spent an hour and a half combing through files on my computer, trying to force some kind of order onto the chaos that is my current (okay, pertpetual) state. I haven’t changed much since I was kid, it appears, because just like back then when I was sent to clean my room, I ended up getting distracted by the items I was supposed to be organizing. Anyway, I came across Mark Vonnegut’s 2010 piece on mushrooms and remembered why—tempted as I may be—there’s no way in hell I’d ever eat mushrooms I foraged.
Fifteen minutes or so after eating the new mushroom, which I did not serve to my wife, thank God, my heart started racing, painful spasms seized the back of my throat and sweat started pouring off me. I remembered seeing a picture of a mushroom, one with a skull and bones under it, that was called the sweating mushroom. Funny name, I thought.
“I think I might have made a mistake with the mushrooms,” I said softly.“What’s that, dear?”
“I think I made a mistake with the mushrooms,” I said too loudly. Had I been sure I had ingested a less-than-fatal dose, I would have just gone quietly to bed.
It didn’t help that I was on the staff of the hospital where I went to get my stomach pumped. If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have gone elsewhere and maybe used another name.“Doctor . . . , what are you doing here?”
“I was hoping maybe you could start an IV, run some saline and pump out my stomach.”
“Why are you dripping sweat?”“Funny you should notice that.”
Needless to say, Vonnegut survived his brush with nature, but let it be a warning not to eat stuff growing on the forest floor. Unless you want to.
Nothing like the off chance of dying to whet the appetite.
I was never so alive as after I almost died?