Jeff tells me daily that I need treatment for my computer addiction. This time I’ve buried my head in Matt’s laptop, and I’m checking on my audible.com credits, when I hear Karen say, “Michael’s missed all the excitement.”

I’m hunched at the dining room table with my back to the kitchen and I keep tapping away until then I think, okay, let’s see what she’s yapping about. I turn around to see Jeff slouched in a chair, his skin four shades of weird, scary red. Karen is staring intently at him and next to her, on the counter, is a used EpiPen.

I get up and ask, “What happened?”

“Jeff had an anaphylactic reaction to an insect bite, and I gave him a shot and some Benedryl,” Karen answers.

Now I can assemble all the pieces of visual information, none of which make sense in the context of this happening ten feet from me. There’s the how can I be so out of touch with the world, and how can one couple be so casual about something so life threatening.

Jeff is holding a paper towel over the puncture wound on his thigh and complaining about feeling disoriented, and I’m pushing future world without the EpiPen out of my mind.

“Look, I’ve got to understand this. Jeff almost dies, you administer some ad hoc home remedy and then you call it a day? On the one had I’m staggered by your frontier spirit, but on the other I’m alarmed.”

“Oh, this has happened before,” Karen answers. “I gave him the epi early and neither the epi or the Benedryl can hurt him.’

My stomach settles on that point, but I wonder if this is enough. We’re going to let this hivey, rudy-red hulk carry himself up to bed?

At which point Jeff stands up and says, “I’m going upstairs to read a book.”

Karen asks for reassurance that he’s okay, and he says he is, but about two minutes after his climb up the steps he lumbers back down alarmed by the swelling around his pelvis.

“We’re going to Deaconess,” Karen states firmly. “Jeffrey, should we call 911?”

Jeff says “No,” and I think I didn’t listen to my father the other night, why should we listen to Jeff now? I guess because he’s always right and he and Karen are Epi-veterans.

My truck is parked a few blocks away on Bellemeade, and as I climb into the back of their truck Jeff says, “You don’t want to get stuck in the emergency room. We’ll call you from the hospital. ” Again, I take his advice and climb out of the truck. As Karen and Jeff drive off I think to myself, You’re right, Jeff, I don’t want to get stuck in the emergency room, but I’m damn good at CPR.

In the emergency room I learn about the time Jeff had a similar reaction on a long bike ride. He needed two shots, and then, because he didn’t want to disturb anyone’s recreation, Jeff drove himself home. “I could hardly keep my eyes open,” he said.

Perking up.

*Note to all: Jeff’s ER doc said, “If you need a shot of Epinephrine, you need to come to the hospital.”