It happened at around 10:30pm last night, just after hanging out a bit with a friend at Lulu Carpenter’s, a coffee shop downtown on Pacific Ave. I (Luke) was parked about a minute’s walk down a somewhat dark and deserted street, in the (likewise deserted) bank parking lot. 
I had some Smarties in my pocket from a jam-party I was at last Saturday, so as I approached my car in the deserted parking lot, I popped one in my mouth. Immediately, I got that nasty sensation of strong sour flavor mixed with a lack of salivaâ€â€I don’t know if other people have experienced this, but when this has happened before I’ll get a really terrible feeling in the back of my throat. Almost like some super-concentrated sour syrup getting caught back there.
The difference this time was that something got stuck back there. Suddenly I found I couldn’t breathe. I tried to cough, but there was little air in my lungs and I couldn’t do it. Realizing that I could suffocate and there would be nobody around to help me, I started running back to Lulu’s. I was hitting myself in the stomach and back as I went, trying to breathe. I’m a pretty bad runner as it is, endurance-wise, but not being able to breathe made it seem that much longer. The thought crossed my mind that if I didn’t make it to where other people were, I could die.
Thankfully, as you might guess, I didn’t die. I started getting little gasps of air just as I ran into the coffee shop. I leaned on the counter, gasping and sputtering and looking like I’d seen a ghost; the employee guessed, “Hey, you want some water?”
After I got home, I finished the Smarties.
