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The Day I Took Poison and Mom Saved Me
By Dean Norman
I was on my way to the dinner table when I saw a little brown sack on top of the refrigerator. Inside were some chocolate malt ball candies. I popped one into my mouth. It was bitter. “Ugh! Who put this trick candy here?” I said.
Mom, Dad and my two sisters stared at me. I remembered. We had a rat in the wall, and Dad had said he was going to bring home some rat poison. I should have looked at the label on the sack. I ran to the sink and tried to vomit. Putting a finger in my throat didn't do it. I remembered being told to drink dirty dishwater if you swallowed poison and needed to vomit. But we were just about to begin eating dinner, so there was no dirty dishwater. Another remedy was raw egg whites.
“Give me some raw egg whites!” I shouted.
“How many?” said Mom.
“I don't know. Two or three.”
“Well, do you want two or three?”
“Give me two.”
“Maybe that's not enough. I could give you three.”
“OK, give me three.”
“But three might be too many.”
“Give me two, and then give me three more. Hurry. Don't keep asking how many.”
Finally I got the two egg whites and swallowed them. Then Mom handed me three more. I swallowed those, and was able to vomit. I stood quietly and thought about how my stomach felt. It felt OK. Mom handed me another cup of egg whites. I didn't argue. I swallowed them and vomited again.
While Mom and I had been negotiating the number of egg whites needed to save my life, Dad had phoned the doctor. Dad came into the kitchen and said, “The doctor said to read the package. It probably has a remedy there.”
I looked at the brown sack, and read the advice. “Not harmful to humans.” Then I looked at the kitchen counter near the sink. There was an empty egg carton, and twelve cups with an egg yolk in each cup.
“Well, you made me so nervous,” said Mom. “I didn't know what I was doing.”
— Dean Norman
Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards, The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine and The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.