Not too long ago, I hit up a ski resort and ended up munching on some crispy pollock skin snacks at a nearby restaurant. It was salty and surprisingly tasty, more like a snack than a side dish. The place was known for its pollock soup, but honestly, the snack was what stuck with me. I had forgotten about it until I stumbled across an online ad for pollock skin snacks. The packaging screamed ‘Collagen Prince’ in bold letters, even bigger than the name itself. I had no idea it had collagen. Remembering that salty goodness, I ordered three bags. Figured they’d be perfect for those snacky moments. Plus, hello collagen! 🐟
The pollock skin snacks arrived, and they were bigger than I expected, about the size of karaoke shrimp chips. As soon as I ripped open the bag, I grabbed a handful and tossed them into my mouth. The crispiness was just like that restaurant near the ski resort. But, being dried fish, once in my mouth, they started to expand with moisture. The fried pieces crumbled and seemed to grow even more. Without much thought, I swallowed the fragmented, puffed snack pieces. Suddenly, it felt like something wasn’t right. My throat felt blocked, and bam – I was hit with a monstrous cough fit.
‘Cough, cough…’
Was it a cold? Either way, the coughing didn’t let up. Usually, a couple of big coughs and a few tears would do the trick, but not this time. I couldn’t see inside my throat, but I was sure a snowball-like piece had lodged there and was heading down my windpipe due to gravity. In a desperate bid to dislodge it, I coughed like a mad person. However, the amount was overwhelming, and my coughing didn’t seem to help. It felt like the fragmented pieces had adhered to my lung walls. The coughing wouldn’t stop, and when I glanced at the clock, I realized I’d been at it for 20 minutes. Exhaustion set in. Was coughing always this taxing? What was I trying to achieve? Suddenly, my life flashed before my eyes like a movie montage.
‘I’m tired…’
As the relentless coughing continued, I couldn’t help but think how tiresome it was.
‘Is there anything more exhausting than coughing? Nope, nothing.’
‘Coughing is as tedious as life itself…’
‘Was life always this tiresome?’
‘Am I enduring this tiresome cough just to prolong a tedious life?’
‘Haven’t I done enough by now?’
At that moment, I decided to just stop trying to cough, regardless of the pollock remnants in my lungs. Even though my brain kept signaling the need to cough, I ignored it. My chest still felt tight, but thankfully, I managed to stop coughing. If I hadn’t been able to stop, I might have just drifted away. I was that exhausted. Honestly, anyone who had been coughing non-stop for 20 minutes would likely make the same decision. Twenty minutes of full-on coughing is like studying relentlessly for three years for entrance exams. Maybe someone willing to repeat the year might do a bit more… A couple of days later, I felt a bit better, possibly because some snack pieces had moved during sleep. Perhaps my lungs learned to digest food. 🤔
A few mornings ago, while sipping coffee with friends, I passionately shared the risks of pollock skin snacks. They were horrified to hear about my near-death snacking experience. One friend commented that I seemed more mature after the ordeal. If you don’t grow from such experiences, there’s no hope for you. Then another friend chimed in with a similar tale of her own.
She recounted attending a senior’s wedding in her early twenties. Steak was served, and it seemed she enjoyed stuffing her mouth full before chewing. In her eagerness to move on to the next piece, she barely chewed and swallowed, and it got stuck in her throat. Drinking water didn’t help; it just flowed back out of her mouth. The piece was that lodged. Not wanting to make a scene at the wedding by performing the Heimlich maneuver, she managed to stagger to the bathroom. It was a risky decision. She couldn’t even decide if it was more embarrassing to eject the steak piece or be found as a corpse in the restroom. (She couldn’t distinguish between life and death, it seems.) Leaning against the toilet, she decided, with all her might, that this would be her last act in this world, and gulped hard. Miraculously, the steak slid down. (Hallelujah!) She survived and returned to her seat to continue her meal. 🍽️
Glancing around, it seemed everyone had forgotten about my pollock incident, captivated instead by her steak saga. Someone even said it was like a Maupassant novel. But Maupassant wrote ‘Ball of Fat’…
And,
the steak wasn’t even in her windpipe.
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