Shoeless Joe’s Heimlich Maneuver

A survivor, a hero, and a pre-teen to rule them all.

This is a buddy post to “Stop Complaining About Neck Pain to Your Parents”.

As an adolescent, nothing compares to the embarrassment that you feel for your own family members. Specifically, to your Mom in public.

For example, when your Mom arrived for after school pick-up and you willed her transition lenses to graduate from sunglass to clear. Or when your Mom belted out Jann Arden through squinted eyes of passion in the car. Or when she took you and your friends to the public pool and revealed a Bob Ross sized bush in the change room (admittedly, that thing was a marvel but there was a time and place). 

During puberty, we have no control over our own body. Each day, swollen nipples inflated another size and new stretch marks appeared over soft, marbled flesh. Voices cracked. Kids got picked last. And social bloodbaths ran overeth.  

The last thing we needed was the liability of a parent, grandparent, or nerdy sibling to shake our faulty foundation. We had no embarrassment bandwidth, cringe currency, or “social insurance” left to cover any familial acts.

In public, our only choice was to disassociate. In order to save ourselves, we had to act like an emancipated Drew Barrymore going to auditions, Studio 54, or the grocery store ALONE.

However, this wasn’t always possible. Occasionally, being out in public with our parents was unavoidable. During these unfortunate circumstances, we had to play the role of the hunchbacked, exasperated troll. Insert: glaring eyes through stringy, overgrown bangs.

One night, my Mom asked if I wanted to go for dinner. I was aware of the risks involved, but the deep fryer called. 

We set our sights on Shoeless Joe’s. It was on the town’s main drag and was a place to see and be seen—it was where the who’s who dined on lattice fries and Coors Banquet.

When we walked in, I quickly scanned the restaurant. Before I could angle for a corner booth, the hostess led us to a table in the middle of the dining room.

Once seated, my antennae radarred to detect other on-site tweens.

There were women dressed in knee-high pointy toed boots and men wearing their finest hockey jerseys. Although there was a close-call lookalike (some people just have those faces), I didn’t recognize anyone. 

I let my guard down. From my assessments, I was Shoeless Joe’s only child patron.

To celebrate, I ordered a Shirley Temple. Double maraschino.

As we settled in, my Mom and I made conversation freely. There was little fear that a pleasant dinner with the woman who birthed me would get leaked.

And then, something extraordinary happened.

All of a sudden, the man at the table next to us began to choke. Quickly, the choking turned into coughing. And the coughing into gasping. Then, there were deeper, intermittent croaks. A palpable panic washed over.

The woman next to him called out, “He’s choking! Help!”.

A voice from another table yelled, “Does anyone know the Heimlich?”

At that moment, time froze. The crisp winds of life or death swirled through Shoeless Joe’s. The deep-fried air in the room was completely sucked out.

Slicing through, I heard a familiar sound.

It was the zip zopping of wind-breaker pants chafing together. 

Fuck! 

Before I could stop it, my Mom had sprung from her seat.

“He needs the Heimlich?!”, she reaffirmed.

Swiftly, my Mom got the choking man to his feet. His face was colourless with eyes bulged in panic. From behind, she wrapped herself around his large torso and cupped her hands below his chest. 

She heaved. And with greater force, she heaved again. And again. And again.

Finally, in slow-motion, a chunk of greyed Salisbury steak catapulted across the room. Immediately, my eyes dropped to the floor to scan for the protein carnage. The lethal paddy had launched itself into complete camouflage. 

I now understood the power of damask industrial carpeting. 

The man, shaky and dizzied, slunk back into his seat. 

Through tears, his wife uttered some soft words. Then, the entire restaurant erupted into applause. In a cigarette-accent, a regular at the bar hollered “You’re a goddamn hero, sir!”.

My Mom gave a flat-palmed wave and returned to our table.

Once seated, she exhaled with relief and excitement. Her eyes were wild, like she too had survived something. 

As she caught her breath, I cut right to the chase.

“Oh myyyyyyyy god, Mom! Your hair was bouncing everywhere! It looked sooooo crazy!” 

My mom clipped back, “You were concerned about my hair?”. 

Right then, I knew that I’d crossed a line. So, I did what any preteen would: I doubled down. 

“Yeah, it was sooooo embarrassing! Your hair was flopping back and forth.” 

After my fearless feedback, I dared to make eye contact to gauge how pissed she was.

Before she could respond, our waitress came over to share her congratulations. 

The waitress didn’t comment on the whole hair thing, but judging by the amount of product in her crispy bouffant, she’d clocked it as well. Instead, she offered a dessert on the house. We went with the molten lava cake—the superior freezer selection to the apple blossom. 

We continued our dinner in silence. My Mom was stewing over the heroism I’d stolen and I wasn’t woman enough to apologize.

The next day, I thought of a solution. To avoid such instances in the future, we could either: stay home until my twentieth birthday or my Mom could tie a silk scarf onto her purse. The scarf would act as a fashion accessory by day, Heimlich utility item by night. Should she be required to save another man’s life, a bowline knot would offer a fast release to tie up her hair and heave.

The choking incident at Shoeless Joe’s would go down as the top anecdote for my Mom to describe the horrors of the pre-teen years. The story is used to summarize just how bratty, self-centered, and vain I was. While the brattiness was fuelled by insecurity, the self-centeredness and vanity remain lifelong traits. 

That said, today, I’d never tell a hero that their hair looked like shit after saving a life. I’d keep that to myself. Only an indiscernible grin shall reveal my truth.

Note: If you are in the position where a stranger saves your and/or a family member’s life in a restaurant, it’s highly encouraged to pay their bill.

A tier-two move would be to send over drinks. Tier three: a crayoned ‘thank you’ from a child seated at your table.

The absence of any of the above suggests that your gratitude for a second lease on life is less than a parking ticket.