Although I am a physician, having stayed at a Holiday Inn Express before, I’m also a person too, believe it or not. I enjoy going out in public on occasion, showing my face to the real world, and sometimes that involves going to a grocery store, where invariably one of my patients interrupt me and talk about their problems, or they ask why my office didn’t call them yet about their test results. Invariably, they extend their necks as far as they can to examine the contents of my grocery cart, hoping to find clues about my eating and personal habits, but I quickly hide the beer and fritos under jumbo packs of toilet paper. Yes, thank God I bought huge rolls of toilet paper to hide the beer. Certainly, everyone knows that the majority of U.S. doctors use toilet paper too.

Having said that, it can be anxiety provoking for me to go to restaurants. Because of my training, I automatically observe all the patrons, scanning the scene for all the potential physical maladies present. This includes body habitus, facial structure, rhythm and cadence of the walk, skin discoloration, limps, gait abnormalities, hoarseness, labored breathing, etc. My friends are well aware of this, and usually they come prepared with bulky horse blinders to place on my face so that I can’t observe too much and that they will feel confident that I will eat and pay attention to them only.

Much of the anxiety is provoked by potential Heimlich maneuver candidates: people who will choke and turn blue on their food. This is serious, and I am not trying to make light of choking on food at all. However, because of the serious nature of this problem, I propose that people who fit these high risk Heimlich potential should be placed in special “Heimlich – prevention rooms” in the restaurant, for their safety and for the comfort of the other low risk Heimlich patrons. Here are the “Heimlich prevention room” qualifiers:

• People over the age of 80 who have loose dentures that protrude out of their mouth while they chew on large pieces of stringy meat.
• People who weigh over 400 pounds and talk with large boluses of food in their mouths, with cheeks protruding like they are starving chipmunk mutants.
• People who weigh over 400 pounds and laugh heartily while talking and spitting clumps of food.
• Parents who bring in little toddlers to the restaurant and say, “Eat your vegetables Harold or no ice cream tonight.” Then, they force carrots into their screaming mouths.
• People who are so inebriated that they can’t even find their mouths.

Yes, all these people qualify for the special Heimlich prevention rooms. They will be comfortable in these safe rooms, supervised by highly trained personnel, financed by taxpayer dollars, so that all people can eat comfortably in restaurants, with equal access, no matter whether they are high or low risk. In fact, this will be ordered by Obama care, but of course, there will be no financial reimbursement by Obama care for this service; we must pass the bill before reading it. Trust me, it will give us hope and change. It will be a mandatory service that all restaurants must provide otherwise they will have to pay a hefty fine to the IRS.

Go ahead. Send me hate mail, all you high-risk Heimlich people, but I’m only doing this for your protection, and my peace of mind. You know I’m right and you know who you are.

Peace and love.

SRC