My wife, Holly, and I enjoy getting away from it all when we travel, so I prefer to keep my occupation under wraps to enhance our peace and quiet. A couple of summers ago, we travelled to beautiful, idyllic central New Hampshire, where we settled into a resort-like motel with about 20 rooms in a long row, ours being the furthest from the motel office.
One evening around 6:30 pm we threw our door open in response to frantic banging outside. This revealed the office manager — blue in the face and clutching his throat with his hands. It took some seconds for me to come out of my holiday stupor and realize that I wasn't imagining things. A Heimlich manoeuvre brought forth a good cubic inch of steak and much relief. In the midst of choking, the guy had remembered the “Dr.” on the credit card I provided when we checked in and had come staggering down to our room on a hope and a prayer.