ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

"The Report of My Death Was An Exaggeration."

So said Mark Twain and now that I read what I said last month in this sheet, it is no wonder why some of my friends (I use that term loosely) thought I was about to buy the farm or I was losing it. I feel fine and I have all my faculties. So today, I am going to bore you with a yarn that includes a near-death experience. So brace yourself.

The folks at this magazine put that likeness of me in the top left of the page so you know who to avoid when walking down the street. I say, better here than seeing it in the Post Office. Holding that hat up is a head and under that head is a neck. I think you can tell that my neck size is almost as big as my swelled head. So today, I am talking about neck size. First of all, what I want to know is where did haberdashers get 7 3/8 th's to be a reference point for big heads such as mine? I don't know either; perhaps it is the r in the formula for pie r square. (Why do they say pies are square anyway? They're round.)

But on the other hand, I do know what my neck size is because I can actually place a rope around it and if my better 7/8ths isn't too close by to give it a yank, I can measure it in inches. Thank goodness there are still a few units of measurement in my world that are still in English. So how many of you can say Size 17? I can easily fill a 17 ½ shirt and that is the basis for today's yarn from the verandah.

Ask any sawbones about such large neck sizes and he or she will tell you that you have a silent killer working within you. No, it is not cancer, not gout nor even hardening of the arteries. It has to do with your job on the night shift, you know, sawing wood. Back a few years ago, I could saw and stack cordwood with the best of them and my very patient wife was ready to put a cot for me out on the verandah. My snoring equaled the db level of a 747 getting ready to take off from the Malton flying field. But what makes it worse, and don't go thinking she didn't want to sometimes, is if my better 7/8ths didn't give me the elbow umpteen times a night, I wouldn't be here offering you the pleasure of this drivel.

Yes, snoring and sleep apnea are serious issues. It's just a fact that the mass of muscle in my neck (my wife says fat) that it takes to keep my pipes working so well, just turns into mush in the night and impairs the air going in and out. Coupled with that is the sleepy little switch master somewhere in that noggin who is snoozing when he should be telling my diaphragm to expand and contract. So I stop breathing. I used to stop breathing a lot. I went to a sleep clinic some years back to confirm my suspicions. There, a technician plugged me in to all kinds of computer monitors and then set to watch me sleep. Talk about a boring job. Anyway, I stopped breathing so often in the night that even the technician thought she would have to carry me out feet first. That is the near-death experience, except I was doing that every night!

I needed help. What to do? Do you get an operation? Some do but it is not often the most reliable or safest option. No, the easiest fix is to pump air into your pipes. That forces you to keep breathing and puts the chain saw back in the shed at the same time. So that is what I do each night; tie on this mask much like the one we have for keeping me away from those nasty pesticides. The only thing different is I am connected through an umbilical cord to a pump which whirs away sending air down my pipes. And it works! Does it ever! But I can't put it on until the lights are out! It makes me look like either Mickey Mouse or Darth Vader.

I now get to sleep the night through and do I ever notice the difference when I am awake. Before, I could fall asleep on a dime in the day time. Now, I don't even feel like nodding off during the sermon.

And my better 7/8ths? She still lives with me! Sometimes I wonder why but I consider that a bonus and a credit to this magical machine.

So the next time you get accused of snoring or worse yet, gagging and gasping for air by your loved ones, listen to them and do something about it.

Oh, I forgot to mention about another possible cure but the jury is still out on this one; lose weight! I say the jury is still out because I haven't tried it yet. Stay tuned. "Ha!" says my wife. We'll see.