Excerpts from “Choke” by Chuck Palahniuk (6 month-old draft)
Believe it or not, you know everybody here.
These people are legends. Every single one of these men and women you’ve heard about for years.
In the 1950s a leading vacuum cleaner tried a little design improvement. It added a spinning propeller, a razor-sharp blade mounted a few inches inside the end of the vacuum hose. Inrushing air would spin the blade, and the blade would chop up any lint or string or pet hair that might clog the hose.
At least that was the plan.
What happened is a lot of these men raced to the hospital emergency room with their dicks mangled.
At least that’s the myth.
That old urban legend about the surprise party for the pretty housewife, how all her friends and family hid in one room, and when they burst out and yelled “Happy birthday” they found her stretched out on the sofa with the family dog licking peanut butter from between her legs …
Well, she’s real.
The legendary woman who gives head to guys who are driving, only the guy loses control of his car and hits the brakes so hard the woman bites him in half, I know them.
Those men and women, they’re all here.
These people are the reason every emergency room has a diamond-tipped drill. For tapping a hole through the thick bottoms of champagne and soda bottles. To relieve the suction.
These are the people who come waddling in from the night, saying they tripped and fell on the zucchini, the lightbulb, the Barbie doll, the billiard balls, the struggling gerbil.
See also: The pool cue.
See also: The teddy bear hamster.
They slipped in the shower and fell, bull’s-eye, on a greased shampoo bottle. They’re always being attacked by a person or persons unknown and assaulted with candles, with baseballs, with hard-boiled eggs, flashlights, and screwdrivers that now need removing. Here are the guys who get stuck in the water inlet port of their whirlpool hot tub.
