Grampa’s stories #23

It could have been way worse.


When I was just a little boy, my family would go to ward picnics on occasion. Mom prepared fried chicken or sloppy Joe’s with all the fixings. We spread out a cloth on the table in the pavilion and had a delightful meal visiting with all our friends and ward members. We used to do this in Castle Valley, too. I remember once when I was a small boy still living in Salt Lake, we went to East MillCreek Park and were having a delightful ward picnic. The activities committee brought the fixings to make root beer with dry ice. 


The dark liquid bubbled and foamed when the dry ice was placed in a large beverage dispenser. My friends and I discovered that we could blow smoke out our mouths by placing a small piece of dry ice in our mouth. But I had to keep it moving in my mouth, because it was so cold it would burn my tongue if I didn’t. We were warned not to swallow the dry ice, because if you did it would burn a hole in your stomach. That’s what I was told. Well, the thrill of blowing dry ice smoke out my very own mouth was too tempting to resist. So my friends and I placed small pieces of dry ice in our mouths and blew ‘smoke’ in the air just like a dragon. It was really great! The process was like magic. It was easy to blow billows of “smoke.” Then, somehow I accidentally swallowed the dry ice that was in my mouth. Whoops!


At first I thought maybe I should go tell my parents. I was standing out in the parking lot by the parked cars, and soon my stomach started hurting. “Oh no!” I thought. The pain was progressively getting worse. I was worried. “What have I done?” Then, at the height of my pain as I thought I could take no more…BBRRRRPPPPPP. Oh. That feels so much better. I realized that burping could relieve the pressure that was causing all the pain.

BBRRRPPP.

BBRRRRPPP.

BBRRRRPPP. 


Before long I was back to normal. 

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