Wacky World of Lindsay: I don't know why she swallowed a fly...

A while back, I was very involved with a local middle school. My mom was also extremely involved and one of her many activities was being the cheerleading coach. I typically always helped my mom with anything she needed...one of those times was cheerleading tryouts.

One year, we had all the girls and the judges assembled in the gym as one big group. This was the part of the tryouts where the instructions were given so that everything went smoothly. I stood up in front and was attempting to ease the tension in the room (think about it...it's emotional middle school girls all wanting to be cheerleaders...tension was higher than the Situation Room during war times).

So there I am talking away, cracking jokes and just being my crazy self when all of a sudden, something happened. Something bad happened. I froze and my eyes got big.

On my tongue...there was a fly.

A fly had flown into my mouth like some Kamikaze fighter jet and landed right on the back of my tongue. And it was stuck. And it was not happy. So what does one do in a moment like this? I stood there with my mouth wide open, slightly leaning forward with my tongue hanging out. I looked like a panting dog in the middle of a hot summer day. Here was my predicament...I was not going to swallow the fly (I read the book as a kid....I could potentially die or be forced to swallow insects and animals galore. Not happening.) I was hesitant to reach in and remove it because I might accidentally smush it. Nasty. And then, of course, I couldn't really ask for help because well, I had a fly in my mouth. I believe I let out some incomprehensible mutterings and made some poorly executed charade motions in my attempt to communicate this most unfortunate turn of events. My final decision was to continue to lean over, allow gravity to assist me and slightly shake my head to get the fly to become unstuck and fall out. Since no one knew what had happened, I cannot imagine what I looked like. A fool, no doubt.

The good news: my strategy worked, the fly fell out and I lived to tell the tale. :) Apparently, public speakers should always have an emergency action plan for rogue insects who attempt to commit bug suicide.