It was a couple of days before spring break. I asked a student sitting next to me if she was going home. “No, I’m going to see my boyfriend,” she said. I asked what he did, and she said he was a baseball player for the Atlanta Braves minor league team. Then I asked if he was a good person. A strange question. She said, “Yes, he’s great,” and that she had known him since the beginning of high school.
My nephew loves baseball and plays really well. I explained this to her and asked if she would get me an autograph. “Absolutely,” she replied.
Then she asked me what I was doing during spring break.
Without thinking, I said I was going to have myself put into an induced coma for ten days. She thought this was a riot. I like to make people laugh. I got louder for the benefit of the entire class, gaining a larger audience. I repeated my spring break plan, and most people laughed. A few looked at me oddly. I continued to develop my plan. I would get a babysitter for my son and a dogwalker for the poodle.
I told the class I just didn’t want to deal with anyone or anything. In fact, I decided aloud that I hated everyone. This got a big laugh. I told the students I even hated them. More laughing.
When spring break was over, I said, I would have them lift me out of my perfect coma. I didn’t know who “them” would be. I’d be back in class the following Monday, and we would carry on and I would really like them once again. (That’s hopeful.)
I finished by saying that I thought every individual should have the right to induced coma-ing. It would be a short death that one could control.
It seems I no longer fantasize about exotic trips to the Far East or Africa during spring break. I just want “out” for a time.
I think I have been brought to my knees. I’m merely breathing through a straw. Single gay parent raises adopted boy and poodle by himself. No partner, few bucks, and very little support. I look down at the hole in my sock and think… INDUCED COMA.
