The Perils of Popcorn

Four years of parenting, and we had never once set foot in an ER... until Sunday afternoon, when an innocent bowl of popcorn did us in.

While enjoying a midday snack with Daddy, Joey inexplicably shoved a piece of popcorn up his nose. It never does to ask why in these situations... although of course we did. When he realized just what he had done, he panicked and started wailing.

Not two minutes later, we had a copycat crime on our hands. The perp? Clara Jane. While we were tending to Joey and trying to get him to calm down, she started chirping, "Popcorn in nose! Popcorn in nose!" We didn't really believe that we had two victims of the popcorn bowl on our hands, but sure enough, we pointed a flashlight up her nostril, and she had a kernel firmly lodged there, too.

All you can do is laugh, right?

At least that's what the entire ER staff did when, a half hour later, we escorted our ridiculous twosome into the nearest ER -- which also happens to be CPMC's brand-new pediatric facility. Luckily, they're used to childhood trauma of all stripes, and tended to Joey and Clara with the perfect balance of sensitivity to their dual plight, and humor at their predicament.

They quickly determined that Joey was the bigger wuss of the pair -- big surprise, given Clara's unreal pain tolerance -- and set to work retrieving Clara's kernel first. She barely flinched. Joey, on the other hand, howled while they dug for his much more deeply embedded "popped" popcorn fragment.

Here's our pair in their shared exam room... Joey very ungallantly made Clara get her blood pressure taken first.







Sniffles were slightly kept at bay while they examined the cable car on the wall.



Clara shows off her patient wristband... on her right hand, since the kernel was in her right nostril, of course.



We opted not to keep the kernels for posterity, but gladly accepted popsicles for both kids, and were sent home with identical discharge sheets that instructed us to "Tell your child not to put objects into his or her nose."

Kids, are you listening? That includes fingers.