Here I come to save the day...

My CPR and lifesaving certification expires in November and I wanted to get recertification out of the way. If you let it expire, you have to take the whole two day course over again. We refreshed our CPR, choking and injuries skills today and we were done by lunch time.

Don't pass up the chance to take a similar course, especially if it's free through work. Lifesaving information has changed vastly since when I first took it as a teenager and watching medical dramas doesn't count--they often skip over a lot of the practical parts.

Actually, I used my knowledge to help myself out a few weeks ago. We ordered Chinese food and a particularly stringy piece of beef either wasn't going down or I was choking on it. It just felt wrong, so I got up, bent over and violently coughed it out while finishing up with a finger sweep. In a perfect situation, you make the universal sign of choking, but I imagine very few people do that in real life--they're more likely to run off to the bathroom.