Y2K Survivor

When I was in high school, one of my very best friends, and still one of my closest friends to this day, was diabetic.  He has been diabetic as long as I have known him and that dates back to Middle School. We seemed to have many of the same interests and while we did not go to a large school, we had the same circle of friends.

When we got to High School age, we were walking drooling hormones with a serious lack of blood supply to our brains because all the blood was rushing to you-know-where.  So we would cruise the old Main drag in town.  This was about a 2 mile stretch that would go down by the Historic Council House, circle the square and drive back by the Wal Mart at the South end of town.  Kids would drive this stretch all night long at about 75 cents a gallon gas, and it seems beer was around $3.00 a six pack.

Sure we didn't drink all the time. That would be impossible even at those prices.  I mean, most of us were hard working part timers making upwards of $3.25 an hour.  But this was the social scene of my small part of America.  There was just one little problem to this Rockwellian dream of the Mid West.  I hated the thought of driving for driving's sake... it wasted too damn much of that 75 cents a gallon gas.

This is where my buddy Mark stepped in.  Mark had a Chevy Impala convertible with a really nasty rag top.  But he loved to drive!  So, he would drive, I would take the shot gun seat and each night we would go out to find adventure.  (Read that as try to get laid)  Adventures that almost certainly never actually happened... but boys are eternal optimists!

One night Mark came up with this great idea.  We would drive around and drink way too much alcohol, and we would have a girl ride between us.  Mark would complain of feeling weak, and I would just chew him out for being a big sissy.  Then I would distract the girl by explaining how he was diabetic and always used this as an excuse to get people to buy him food.  After engaging her in conspiratorial conversation, I would suddenly notice Mark had "Passed Out" behind the wheel.  Screaming in panic I would grab the wheel and yell for her to kick his foot off the gas.  All the time gently edging us towards oncoming traffic.

Yeah... now you see why we never got laid.

But Mark wanted to take the show bigger.  He was tired of all the off Broadway skits we did night after night...  that's was a good street to pull that shit on too!  So one night we are at a party among friends and Mark says his cue.  "Oh man I feel weak."  Out of instinct, more than anything else I go into character and chew him out and stand up and throw a huge hissy to distract people from looking at Mark, before I gesture towards him and he is all sprawled out on a bean bag chair.

I scream in panic and rush to him, lifting his lifeless arms and letting them flop back to the hard floor with a thud.  I go into full panic and say he is in a coma from too much beer or alcohol or whatever, and we need to give him something he can eat.. something he can absorb.  I think I asked for bread, and they didn't have any.

WTF?!  Who the hell doesn't have any freakin bread?  I mean I have been freakin low carbing for years, and I always have some kind of bread!  So I think and say sugar.  We can put a pinch in sugar in his mouth and it will dissolve and boost his sugar, I know this because my grandmother is a diabetic (always a good thing to identify your level of expertise) so this chick who rents the house says she doesn't have any sugar.

WTF?!  Who doesn't have sugar?  Then she says maybe she has some in a cabinet, if she can just remember where.  I am still feigning panic mode so I scream "FIND IT!!"  And pretty soon there is a little Parkay butter thing full of sugar and I grab it away from them because I am the expert and I kneel down over Mark, lying so lifeless on a beanbag chair and I am right there holding a butter dish full of sugar thinking to myself, "What the hell do I do now?!  I can't give him sugar, he's freakin diabetic!"

So I look up and see all our friends gathered around us in a hand-wringing huddle.  Nobody was breathing as they seemed to bite their lips and hold their breaths in desperate hopes poor Mark will survive.  And I gotta tell you I was getting nothing!   What the hell was I supposed to do now?  But kneeling down and looking up towards all those concerned friends reminded me of church, so I took a pinch of sugar, held it up in clasping praying hands and intoned, "Oh God... Heal this Diabetic!" and I threw the sugar in Mark's face.

You know it has been almost 30 years since that hot summer night, yet I can still clearly see in my mind's eye, the hard sugar granules smash into his lifeless face, ricochet around his nose and circle the drain of his eye sockets just before he snorted his first giggle.  The expectant, desperate faces slowly melted to looks of confusion that changed to less than friendly faces when poor Mark went from snorts to more of a belly laugh. 

Yeah...  We decided that was NOT a good party trick.