Coma Chameleon

My mind has been wandering a bit lately, partially due to hunger, but one thought that I can't seem to get out of my head is what it would be like to wake up from a coma after a large number of years.

I read a story a long while back about a man who woke up from a coma after something like 20 years and he asked for a Pepsi and wanted to know if Reagan was still President. How unnerving must it be for someone to go into a coma on say, June 13th 1992 and then wake up today? The massive changes that we have had in that time would be astronomical. One day you think a Nintendo is the height of technology for gaming and you wake up and get to play an Xbox! You go comatose when Macaulay Culkin is slapping his face and wake up to Justin Bieber on the hospital Muzak machine.

In my wandering mind I thought up a couple of interesting scenarios.

1. You go into a coma around age 10 and wake up at age 21. You don't have anything past a 4th grade education and suddenly you are in a man's body. You now have to begin learning where you left off. You are a real life version of that movie 'Big'. Do you return to school? By the time you get to college people your age are buying houses and getting married. You graduate and you are now competing with other graduates that are 10 years younger than you. It wouldn't just be a environmental change you have to deal with, but a financial and educational one too.

2. You go into a coma as an adult and you wake up years later to find that life didn't stop when you did, it kept going. All of your friends have moved away or are at a much different stage in life, your marriage has fallen apart because your wife has moved on, and you have missed the death of your father. Your family has to welcome you back into their lives and try to catch you up on everything you've missed but they constantly find that they are bringing up things you don't know about and it is awkward and uncomfortable.

There are tons of other variations but the thing I think is most unsettling is the idea that you have to acclimate to the world. The changes in politics, religion, gay rights, television, the Internet, and every other media would be so difficult to catch up on. Where do you start. Do you get a list of the top 100 movies and watch them? Do you go to a bookstore and just soak in the mass of fiction you have missed? Can you ever really get caught up on life or will there always be something that you feel you are still missing?

I know one thing I would have to do and that would be to try to get caught up on my comic books and after waking up from a coma, it wouldn't be easy to do. First, I would need money and that would mean finding work after being out for so long. Trying to find a job would be difficult. What do you put on your resume?

1992-1994: Waiter at Chili's
1994-Present: Coma patient at Dallas General Hospital

That might not get you a call back.

The one saving grace for my big problem is that ebay has come along to make buying massive amounts of crap much easier. It would be a long process but one I would enjoy.

I am not sure why this has gotten so stuck in my head but it doesn't want to leave. Has anyone else ever contemplated this?

That is all,

Newt