WHAT A WAY TO GO

Well, no... actually I feel just fine. But apparently, at the Bizarro ----way down the street, I'm a goner.

Let me explain. Like lots of places with pharmacies, the store has a self-service blood pressure tester. A week or so back, I had a few free minutes to kill (and had just put a container of butter into my cart), so I figured why not give it a shot.

The cuff clamed onto my arm--hard. And then it got tighter. As I listened to some canned recording about heart disease, I felt my forearm throb a little, then go completely numb as the cuff kept clamping down. The recording stopped, but the cuff didn’t let go.

That’s when I realized I might actually be trapped inside the cuff, inside the Bizarro ----way. They’d turn off the lights after closing, leaving me to the rats or whatever else lives in the elaborate tunnel system they clandestinely built a few months back.

There are probably worse places to be locked up, I’m sure, but none came to mind while I was standing there.

After another long moment, the cuff released me, leaving me to ponder my blood pressure.

It was 0/0. In other words, no blood pressure at all. I didn’t go to med school or anything, but I’m pretty sure that’s Not Good.

Some grocery stores might accidentally shortchange you at the cashier. Others might leave the milk on the shelves a day or two too long. Mine declares me legally dead.