My six weeks in a coma...
Good evening, friends and others!
In a previous post, I mentioned that I’d recently been in a coma. A few readers have contacted me asking for “the tea.” And so, here it is: my very own English Breakfast blend...
The tale begins on the evening of March 21st — just a day after my blog post about coyotes, “Coyotes.” I was nearly a week into housesitting for my dear friend Persephone Halibut, a highly successful digital artist whose 2022 work Dave & Buster’s at the Edge of the Universe sold at an NFT auction for a staggering $9.94 million. Needless to say, her home was quite luxe!
After watching an episode of a television program called The Summer I Turned Pretty and winding down in Persephone's sensory deprivation tank, I retired to bed around 8:33 PM and drifted off to sleep soon after.
Earlier that day, in a neighborhood nearly seven miles north of Ms. Halibut’s residence, a 97-year-old woman named Doris Rumph had somehow locked herself out of her granddaughter Sicily Rumph’s house. Sicily and her husband Greg had invited family and friends over to celebrate Greg’s first-place finish in a regional miniature golf tourney. The family later said they believed Grandma Doris had crawled through a small doggie door and found herself trapped in the fenced backyard. She attempted to tunnel her way out, but eventually gave up and instead escaped by gnawing through a half-rotted fence post.
According to a leaked police interview, Doris claimed she decided she would walk herself home at this point — apparently forgetting she no longer had a home. It burned down years earlier in a fire that authorities suspected was part of an insurance scheme cooked up by Doris and her grandson-in-law Greg, both desperate to pay off debtors following some ill-advised investments in NFT artworks.
After wandering the area for several hours, Doris finally arrived home — or so she thought. In reality, her house was a pile of rubble and ash on the other side of town. Instead, she had chanced upon Persephone Halibut’s estate, where I’d fallen asleep just minutes prior. Doris was initially unable to open the locked gate at the end of the driveway. However, she identified a weak point in gate’s wooden frame and managed to gnaw through it. From there, she located an unlocked window and crawled inside.
As I’ve stated, this was not the elder Rumph’s residence at all. But Doris — weary, confused, and extremely dehydrated — seemed to legitimately believe she had finally arrived home. So, the old woman shuffled into Persephone’s kitchen, gulped down an entire half-gallon of whole milk from the fridge, and proceeded to heat up a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner in the microwave. She brought her turkey tetrazzini to the living room and somehow managed to fire up an episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty to watch with dinner.
That’s when Doris noticed the faint sound of snoring. It was me, Pete Switzerland! But unfortunately, in Doris’ dusty and brittle mind, she was hearing the snores of an intruder! I’m unsure if she was terrified or enraged in this moment, but Doris quickly decided she needed a weapon to defend herself and her property. She chose a vintage, wooden tennis racket hanging in a display on the wall. It once belonged to tennis legend Chris Evert, who had played with this very racket throughout her 1975 French Open title run.
Moments later, I awoke to find a 97-year-old woman bashing my skull repeatedly with a valuable piece of sports memorabilia. It was as if Doris had been possessed by Chris Evert herself — every blow to my noggin was one of the tennis icon’s flat and powerful forehands. My bloodied head was simply a large, fuzzy tennis ball in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Before I knew what had hit me over and over with an old tennis racket, Doris suffered a massive stroke and collapsed on top of me. I slipped in an out of consciousness over the next several hours, too weak to move the possibly deceased crone from atop me.
The next day, Persephone returned home and found our seemingly lifeless bodies in a mess of blood, splinters, and silken sheets. She later described the scene as “deeply disturbing and strangely erotic.”
Miraculously, Doris Rumph made a full recovery. She remains incarcerated, awaiting trial.
I woke up six weeks later.