Ode to Swift reaction

I like Taylor Swift, not because of her music, which I don’t know much about, or because she’s the kind of person that allows you to use the word “lithe” in a sentence, which I seldom get to do, or because she’s apparently very, very smart.

Being talented, lithe, very, very smart and intriguingly glamourous have nothing to do with my admiration of her. No, it’s because she swallowed a bug on stage recently and didn’t freak out.

By Stewart Dobson

I can tell you that isn’t easy. I know because I had a fly buzz up my nose when I was a kid, and it so unnerved me that I nearly drowned trying to flush it out with the garden hose.

That’s correct, you might have your sinusclearing neti pots, but turn the hose nozzle on “jet” and take 100 PSI up the sniffer, and then come talk to me. It’s not what I call a good time.

In fact, had I ever been taken prisoner by terrorists bent on waterboarding me for all the critical information I carry — my non-traditional shrimp and grits recipe for instance — I’d laugh in their faces.

“You call this torture? Hah! I had a fly go up my nose once and ...”

“Oh. Well, that changes everything,” they’d say. “Cue up the sensitive pop music. An hour 0f listening to that and he’ll break. They all do.”

“Nooooooooo, not that! I’ll talk. First you make a roux...”

The thing is, everyone who’s ever swallowed, inhaled or otherwise ingested a bug of any kind will tell you that it automatically expands on entry to something like 10-times its normal size.

A fly crosses the threshold into your breathing apparatus, and suddenly you’d swear you have just been violated by a hummingbird.

It's the same principle as the tooth-extraction phenomenon, which is that the removal of a molar that’s about the size of a dime leaves a hole you could putt into, if it was more conveniently located, of course.

But that’s just the way it is, so when Taylor Swift sucked in a moth, fly or some other winged insect as she talked to the audience, she was probably thinking, “Great, I’m about to present a concert and I have a bat perched on my tonsils.”

But did she panic, call for a garden hose, or scream for the bat removal team from Bob’s Flying Mammal Rescue Service? No, she did n0t. She maintained her poise, turned away from the audience, coughed a couple of times, and said, “Oh, delicious.”

That’s it. I don’t care what anyone says, a person who can swallow a bug in front of thousands of people and still maintain a stage presence is to be admired.

Were it me, I’d cave, empty my profane tank, if you will, and call out: “Quick, someone, get the ••••••• garden hose!”

Copyright 2023