Tales of the Sisters: The Peanut

This past Sunday, Michael nonchalantly crammed some play-doh into his ear, and some more up his nose. Luckily his mom was on duty and reacted immediately. She dashed into the downstairs bathroom and emerged with tissues, an otoscope and curette. She’s well prepared for any and all emergencies. This is a critical attribute for being Michael’s Mommy (and for being Michael’s Daddy’s Wife). Michael was not pleased to have her digging around in his ear.

"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime," I said, vacuuming up the remainder of the playdoh bits from the floor.

This act earns him another official “Yep, He’s My Kid” badge, as his sisters have each performed this particular action with various items. B did it with a Cheerio and ended up with a respectable nosebleed. With S, it was popcorn, and she ended up at the hospital.

But it was L’s experience that sticks in my memory.

One night many years ago, when I was living in Washington and still married to my first wife (we’ll call her X), I was driving my family home to Redmond after a day of visiting with grandma and grandpa in Federal Way. It was late, I was tired, and the girls were being quiet. My goal was to get us back home as quickly as possible, since it was already past their bedtimes.

I didn’t know this at the time, but somehow they’d filched some peanuts from their grandmother and were stealthily consuming them in the back seat.

Suddenly, L began sneezing. “Bless you,” X said. L sneezed again. Then again. “Bless
you!” X repeated, with a bit more emphasis. L sneezed a couple more times. “Goodness, what a lot of sneezes! Are you okay, L? Why are you sneezing so much?”

From the backseat, we hear a very small and nasal-sounding “I nunno”.

Uh oh.

“L, do you have something in your nose?” I asked, fingers tightening on the steering wheel.

“Yeth.”

“What is it?”

Silence.

B then piped up with “She put a peanut up her nose.”

“Are you sure? Did she really put a peanut up her nose?”

“Yes, she did, I saw it.”

“L, is this true?”

“Yeth. I’m thorry!” She says, her voice straining with an emotional oleo of regret and fear. X passed a tissue back to her.

“Blow your nose really good. Try to get it out.” L did so, but gained nothing for it but a little trickle of blood. “Tilt your head back, let me see if I can see it.” X unbuckled her belt, turned on the dome light and stretched around back there.

She strained to see inside L’s nose in the feeble light. I continued to drive, becoming more and more concerned.

X reported that she couldn’t see anything, so we decided to head to the hospital emergency room in Bellevue, which was fortunately just a couple of exits away.

“L, you really need to blow your nose good, and get that peanut out of there, or we’re going to have to make you see the doctor, and he’s going to pull it out with a sharp metal poker thing,” X said, frustrated and angry herself, trying to scare L into trying harder.

L blew and blew, trying to get that peanut out of there. X checked the tissue, but saw no peanut.

“L, we’re almost at the hospital. Try one more time, really good.”

She did, but still no peanut to be seen. L starts crying.

“I tried, momma, but it won’t come out!”

X folded the tissue up and stuffed it in her pocket.

So we pulled into the hospital ER and signed in. While we waited, L continued to blow her nose while X and I worked out the logistics. We decided that I’d take B home while she waited with L, as it’s not far away and there’s no sense in having both kids lose sleep.

Not more than five minutes after B and I pulled into our driveway, X called. So we headed right back to the hospital. L was not happy, and neither was X. “The doctor looked, but he can’t find anything. He says it must have traveled far enough up that it’s either lodged in the sinus or has moved to the nasal cavity. We’ll have to have x-rays and possibly sinus surgery if it doesn’t come out on its own.”

My mind reeled with the absurdity of it all, this stupid little peanut and the innocuous little act causing so much real and actual damage and difficulty. We drove home in silence only broken by L’s muted cries.

I was still fixated on that tissue, though.

Then, at about the halfway point, my growing uncertainty finally bubbled up to the surface.

“X, why don’t you take another look at that tissue she blew into?”

She reached into her pocket, pulled out the tissue and unwrapped it completely. There, in the center along with a bit of bodily fluid, was the peanut. She’d blown it out after all. Before we’d ever gotten to the hospital.

The next day, we quizzed L as to why she shoved a peanut up her nose.

“Because I’m an elephant,” she said, matter-of-factly.

But of course.