THE COCKTAIL TALE
By Rafael Hedrick

Shrimp Photo
Provided by Jumbo Shrimp Cartoon
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“I guess we don’t have a choice but to hear the last story.  I almost wish that we would have never asked about your family.  Maybe you were right, we shouldn’t know the truth.  Dad, I just can’t understand how you ever survived all this stuff.  How are you so normal?  I mean my friend, Angie’s, dad…”

“Phoebe, Phoebe calm down.  I plan to explain everything right now.  Just remember that I did grow up to be normal.  I obviously wish my family would have survived all of these things, but they didn’t.  So far I have told you how both my sisters, my brother and my father your Grandpa died.  What you don’t know is what happened to your Grandma, my mother.

“Her death was almost the worst for me.  It had been a year since Katie had tragically met her demise.  Mom, or Grandma and I were just pretty much surviving.  We were taking it one day at a time as our psychiatrist had told us to do.  I was making friends and Grandma was beginning to live again.  One day she told me that she was even more committed than ever to being healthy.  She went out that day and bought healthy food to eat.  You know fruits, vegetables, low fat meats and all that kind of stuff.  She bought us both vitamins and we felt really good about trying to salvage some type of a normal life.

“Your Grandma even talked to me about dating again.  The psychiatrist thought it would be good for her to get out with friends, and Grandma felt like she had to get out of the house more often.  She had met a really nice man, a widower, at church and he asked her out.  I really liked him a lot and they went out several times.  I really thought our luck was changing.  We were both lulled into a false sense of security during that year until disaster struck for the last time.

“Grandma and Ted, the man she had been dating, went out to a nice restaurant for their two month anniversary.  Grandma was trying to follow her new diet of healthy living when she went and she innocently ordered the shrimp platter.  It was one of those all you can eat, any type of shrimp meals and Grandma loved shrimp.  The next thing I knew, Ted was at my house.  He woke me up to take me to the hospital.  After dinner Grandma had gotten really sick.  She told Ted to take her to the hospital.  Unfortunately, he didn’t make it in time.  She died while he ran into the emergency room to get help.

“Again the doctors were dumbfounded.  Nobody could understand what had caused her to die.  What they found created a huge scandal.  The doctors performed an autopsy.  It revealed that your Grandmother had died of arsenic poisoning.  The police got a warrant and searched our house and Ted’s house.  Nothing was turned up.  Then one of the medical examiners for the police station began going over Ted’s statement and noticed something interesting.  The catalog of evidence taken from our house included Grandma’s vitamins, one of which was Vitamin C.  The medical examiner had Grandma’s body exhumed and performed further tests.  He found that Grandma had not been poisoned.  In fact, it was the shrimp that was too blame.”

“Dad, you mean after all of this Grandma died from food poisoning?”

“No Phoebe, it wasn’t food poisoning.  The medical examiner ran tests and found that when shrimp and Vitamin C are taken in combination they cause the production of arsenic and Grandma was dead in hours.  I’m not a doctor, but apparently some fish metabolizes into arsenic.  Usually it is non-toxic, but if it is taken in combination with Vitamin C, the Vitamin C causes it to become toxic and the result is deadly.”

“What happened to you, Dad?”

“Well, Phoebe, Ted actually became my legal guardian.  With the estate that Grandma left, he was able to ensure that I received the best psychiatric treatment, and hired a nutritionist to review every single morsel of food that went into my mouth.  What he really did was provide me with a strong foundation for the future.  He died right after mom and I got married – of natural causes - but if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have managed any amount of normalcy in my life.  He helped make things okay for me, well as okay as they could be, so that I could have a life.  And that, my children, is the end of my story.”

Phoebe and Wil looked at me and just nodded.  I left the room to give them time to talk and meditate over the stories they were just told.

Phoebe looked over at Wil and said, “Hey Wil, do you really believe all that stuff?  Dad is such a jokester.  It wouldn’t surprise me if he walks back in the room in a few minutes and says ‘Just kidding.’”

“I know, I don’t what to think” Wil replied.

“Well, there is one way to find out.  I have some Pop Rocks in my room.  Want to try?”

“I’ll get the Pepsi.  Meet me in the kitchen.”

Wil and Phoebe departed ways and met back in the kitchen.  Meanwhile, dad makes his way down to the kitchen, sees the empty Pop Rocks packages and looks up to see both children starting to drink their Pepsis.

“KIDS NOOOOOOOO…..”

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Unfortunately, Grandma had to die and this was another story inspired by the folks at www.snopes.com.  Shrimp is one of my favorite foods and I do take my vitamins every day (a multivitamin that has C in it), so I was relieved to find out that the author of this urban legend on the Snopes website was not able to confirm the validity of this story.  As with the other urban legends from my previous stories, this legend has kept its popularity because these are two widely used food products.  I obviously added the characters because the story at the Snopes website didn’t have characters to the story, just the advice to stay away from the combination of the two products.  Every other element of this story was made up by me.  I also thought this was a good way to end the Storybook because it was an innocent mistake on the part of Grandma, and after all they had been through, I just didn’t see either of them taking food risks.  Please everyone remember: Man Cannot Eat by Myth Alone.

"Prawn Shopped"
By Barbara Mikkelson
Weblink: http://www.snopes.com/toxins/shrimp.htm

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