I was sitting on my butt minding my own business…

Austin had a quarter, I took it from him and put it on the table next to me. A few minutes later Kalayah wanted to change the channel, so she grabbed the remote (that was also on the table) and apparently grabbed the quarter too.

They were dinkin’ around on the couch and on the floor when all of a sudden Kalayah is jumping up and down and clutching her throat screaming “MOM, I JUST SWALLOWED A QUARTER, IT’S IN MY THROAT AND IT HURTS, IT HURTS REALLY REALLY BAD….I CAN’T SWALLOW, IT HURTS IN MY BACK…WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

My response? “Well clearly you’re ok if you’re screaming at me, calm down for a second so I can talk to you!”

“BUT IT HURTS!”

“I know, but you’re talking so that means its not stuck the wrong way, are you SURE it was a quarter?”

“YES!”

“Was it……(looking at the table), yeah, I guess it was. You took the quarter that was sitting here didn’t you?!”

“Yes.”

I dug through my purse, found a quarter and held it up….”This?”

“Yes.”

Holding up a penny, nickel and a dime…..”Not one of these?”

“No.”

So I called Claude and told him that Kalayah thought it would be a great idea to swallow a quarter and he said get to the E.R..

So off we went.

We signed in at 11:04, the kids played around in the kids area, watched tv, jumped around, made noise and pretty much drove me insane. They took her back for an x-ray around noon and then we sat in the waiting room some more. Everyone in the room got to listen to 1 guy barf every 5 minutes….I dunno what that was about but he sure looked like shit. His girlfriend/wife said “I think he gave himself alcohol poisoning.” to some guy also waiting…. “He normally only drinks 3-4 beers a night, but last night he drank EIGHT!” The guy giggled and responded “You won’t get alcohol poisoning from 8 beers, it’d take a lot more than that to give him alcohol poisoning!” Dude was in the bathroom yacking, so she had uninterrupted time to discuss his drinking habits with a stranger.

So yeah, basically we sat in the waiting room for 3 hours and waited 20 minutes for the doctor to come in and tell us that she’d crap it out in 2-3 days. Also, “Maybe you’ll poop out two dimes and a nickel, and make change!”

She didn’t get it, but I laughed.

So now when she has to go to the bathroom she FREAKS out that it’s gonna be the big one!

Kids….I tell yah.

E.R.