pause for relieved laughter and applause from the crowd

from novel designs friend sarah walker. the text below appears on mcsweeneys today.

HOW TO PERFORM
A TRACHEOTOMY.

BY SARAH WALKER
- - - -

First, go to a fancy restaurant that has waiters with accents who wear tuxedos and a rolling dessert table. Be with a significant other and clink your glasses of red wine while staring lovingly at each other, across the single tapered white candle in the middle of the table. Then, notice a person who is choking on food, probably a fancy meat. This person should be a husky middle-aged man, preferably balding, whose equally husky, curly-haired wife is looking on, horrified, clutching her pearl necklace and screeching, "Somebody help him! He's choking!"

Excuse yourself from your date, throw your white linen napkin down on the white linen tablecloth, and rush over to the choking man. Attempt to give him the Heimlich, but when this fails, calmly realize what must be done. The fancy meat is lodged in his throat and this man requires a tracheotomy. Always address the wife as Susan.

"Susan, Earl requires a tracheotomy."

Always address the choking victim as Earl.

Assure Susan that you are a doctor and be sure to have made up a doctor badge that you can show her. It should be made of pure gold with something like five snakes engraved on it. You probably aren't a doctor. If you are, good for you. That must've taken a long time. You must be very proud and possibly wealthy.

Susan will nod her head in assent, too scared to speak. Place the back of your hand on her cheek and say, "Don't worry, Susan. I didn't go to doctor school for 11 years to let Earl die."

Then lay Earl on his back on the floral-carpeted floor.

Make sure a hushed silence falls over the restaurant as waiters and diners and kitchen staff peeking out of the kitchen look nervously on.

Remove from your breast pocket a custom-engraved Tiffany sterling-silver pen, which was given to you on your 17th birthday and which you always carry around for such occasions. It should say something like "Happy Birthday, [your name]" and then the date of your birth.

Before you go to the restaurant, but only after you've secured your paisley ascot, replace the pen tip with an X-Acto knife.

Raise the pen above your head and click the button so that the X-Acto knife pops out and wait for a gasp from the crowd and for a young boy to drop his fork and have it clatter on his plate. Twist the "penknife" just so, so that the candlelight gleams off it. It would be nice if, when the light hits it, there could be a ding sound effect. Maybe you could arrange to have your significant other tap a wine glass with a fork at that moment.

Then, in one swift movement, jab the pen into Earl's neck, more or less around the throatish area.

Earl will pop up, gasping, the pen dangling comically from his neck. Do not be distracted by this, as you will have to catch Susan, who, with her hand on her forehead, will be falling into a swoon.

Wait for applause, then pull the smelling salts out of your other breast pocket and revive Susan.

Then signal to the waiter and say, "Check, please!"

Pause for relieved laughter and applause from the crowd.

Be prepared for a bear hug from post-smelling-salts Susan. And for an endless pumping handshake from Earl, who will also give you $200 because he's a wealthy industrialist and carries hundred-dollar bills in his pockets.

Wear an extra shirt so the hearty pats on the back from the kitchen staff and waiters don't hurt you too much.

Develop calluses on your hands beforehand by doing a lot of pull-ups, so all the handshakes you receive from your fellow diners don't chafe your carefully manicured hands.

No need to bring your wallet, as dinner will obviously be on the house, so make sure you've ordered the most expensive things on the menu. Plus, you have two hundo from Earl.

Don't forget to ask for your pen back.