Kalamazoo

Yesterday Julie and I drove to Kalamazoo to play in their Friday afternoon game.  I have mixed feelings about the results--you guessed it, we were first in Flight C going into the last round but ended in second place.  Just like in Lansing, we couldn't find a fit and so when we got the contract we usually went down.  This time, though, I kept quiet about how we probably weren't doing as badly as it felt because I thought we really were doing that badly.  Our 51% score was a nice surprise, and as an added bonus it was a special club game so we ended up with extra points.

Regular readers of this blog may recall how I dislike sitting with my back to the room.  An incident that happened yesterday confirms that it is much better to be seated where you can see what's going on.  We were in the middle of a round when I heard a player directly behind me coughing.  Naturally I did not turn around and stare, since I would have had to shift my entire body; rather, I continued with the hand.  Everyone else, though, looked over.  There were gasps and exclamations, and then suddenly a woman ran past me.  It turns out that she had choked on a pretzel and had successfully done the Heimlich Maneuver on herself!

"If that had been me," Julie said, "I would have died.  I don't know how to do that."

"I would have saved you," I said.  I tried to sound competent and reassuring, but my statement was an empty promise.  I don't know how to do the Heimlich Maneuver either.

"I was going to get some pretzels," Julie went on, "but I changed my mind."  She apparently did not have much confidence in me, and rightly so.

"I think that's a wise decision."

To get back to why it would have been better to be facing the other direction:  there was some controversy over how the player in question saved herself.  Some witnesses said she bent over the back of a chair, while others said that she folded her arms around herself and applied pressure that way.  I could have resolved this question if only I had not been facing the wall.