I don’t know who invented these wonderful implements, but I am greatly indebted to them. Tweezers come in very handy, especially now that I am approaching the age where pesky hairs appear in places you don’t want to know about.  If I didn’t have a tweezers in my arsenal, I definitely would be looking like Vincent Van Gogh within a week.

I actually owe my life to a tweezers. (Well, not really; that was supposed to get your attention so that you read on!)

Many years ago, before the dawn of our children, Allan and I were upstate on vacation enjoying a dinner in a restaurant. I decided to have the turkey with all the trimmings and was eating it with gusto when suddenly a bone got stuck in my throat. I kept trying to dislodge it with bread to know avail, so I finally said to Allan “I think I have a bone in my throat…let’s go.” We went back to the car and he got the flashlight and looked down my throat. “Yes dear,” he calmly stated, “You indeed have a bone like a Lilliputian arrow stuck on the side of your throat.”

Now up until this point, I was talking fine, but once confirmation was made as to the bone situation in my throat I immediately scream whispered “GET ME TO A HOSPITAL.” Allan mused to himself “If I only had a tweezers”. Now I’m thinking…great…fine time for him to be thinking about shaping my eyebrows, but then a real sense of panic came over me as I realized what he wanted the tweezers for. Knowing that the man had obviously gone mad, I repeated my whispered plea, this time with teeth clenched, “GET ME TO A HOSPITAL”. But we were in a town God knows where, and it was dark. Where is a hospital when you need one? Allan says again…”If I could just get a tweezers”. With that, he starts the car and within a few blocks, he sees a 5 and 10 cent store. He jumps out, but they had just closed. He’s banging on the door saying ” My wife has a bone in her throat ” (quite dramatically, I might add) “and I need to buy a tweezers”.

Now I’m in the car thinking the man has gone over the edge and I’m seriously thinking of climbing into the drivers seat and taking myself to the hospital, but the thought of leaving him at the door of the store and having him possibly be taken off to a nut house by the 5 and 10 cent staff kept me glued to the seat. The people mercifully unlocked the door and let him in to buy the tweezers. They made him pay for the tweezers right away, too, obviously not realizing the direness of my situation. Now mind you, they had to find the key to the register, unlock it and fire it up. Newspaper headlines began to run through my head “Women Succumbs To Bone in Throat As Husband is Delayed at Cash Register Paying for Life Saving Tweezers”.

He eventually came out with this long, pinch-nosed deal and said “Open wide”.. like he’s a dentist or something. I’m thinking, I hope this works or I’ll be at the hospital with a bone AND a tweezers protruding from my throat. Try explaining THAT to the hospital staff!!! But, Allan, without hesitation, deftly put that tweezers down my gullet and plucked that bone from my throat. My hero!!

It was quite awhile, however, before I stopped pulverizing my turkey at family Thanksgiving celebrations and tweezing my eyebrows on occasion can still gives me the willies!