gulped

When concert halls around the country shuttered their doors and gulped with anxiety about the pandemic future — this was March 2020, not that anyone has forgotten — Martha Gilmer saw an opportunity.

Deuces in hand, we began to muscle our way through throngs of people walking upstairs, all looking for their seats, all precariously clutching their own ‘Deuce. No one dared risk taking a sip and spilling a single cent of their $23 drink. Once seated, we cheers'd each other and brought our cups to our mouths after what felt like hours of anticipation. We gulped and then blinked at each other. One of my friends offered an appreciative, “Hmm.”

"The ocean changed steadily and started encroaching the hotel. The last standing cottage was gulped by the sea in 2019, marking the end of my glorious hotel," Italian businessman Mr Macri told the BBC.

I remember quite vividly the daily grind of getting three children out of bed, dressed, fed, combed and in possession of backpacks and lunches while I gulped down coffee and wondered just how long I could keep this up.

And when a Labrador retriever owned by another company officer gulped down a bagel impaled with a toothpick, he said, most of the resulting $10,5000 surgical bill was covered as well.