Poking Fun During Holiday Season

Whenever the family gets together, which happens frequently during holiday seasons, the teasing starts. This year Brook flew east from New Hampshire for Christmas, but Eric tried for a normal holiday in Richmond, VA—in the four Christmases that Eric and Alison have been married, one involved their getting snowed out in an effort to come west, and for two, Alison has been in the late stages of pregnancy. Brook missed his brother’s teasing, and asked me to post the story of Eric’s sliver.  Maybe Brook has forgotten that Eric would reply with the story of the walnut in Brook’s nose.

     Let’s start with the walnut.  When Brook was a toddler, probably around two years old, he developed such horrible bad breath that I could smell him from across the room.  I consulted my trusty paperback copy of Dr. Spock’s “Baby and Child Care,” which advised checking the child for a nasal obstruction.  Sure enough, Brook’s nose was plugged solid—with something.  I took him to the pediatrician, who confirmed that there was an object in Brook’s nose, but his nose was so swollen and inflamed that the doctor couldn’t get it out. I had to take Brook home and squirt salt water into his nose every two hours to get the swelling down before I took him back to the doctor the next day. Brook was too young to be reasoned with, so every two hours I had to catch him (he was quick!) and sit on him on the floor to hold him still while I squirted salt water into his nose. 

     The next day, the doctor directed me, “Put your arms around him and hold him very securely while I work on his nose.”  I did that, but the doctor said, “You’re doing exactly what I told you, but you’ve trapped one of my hands, too.”  When I released the doctor, he put Brook into a straight jacket, then, using what looked like a crochet hook, removed a hunk of walnut from his nose. “It’s not the worst I’ve seen,” he said. “The worst was a wad of artificial hair from a doll.” The fibers were barbed and had imbedded themselves firmly in the tissue inside the  child’s nostril. 

     Eric has never let Brook forget the walnut in his nose, but Brook could finally retaliate with Eric’s sliver. The finish on the oak floor in our 1920s-era house had worn off and one plank began breaking down into slivers. Eric was dancing around barefooted when he drove a sliver deep into the sole of his foot.  I couldn’t get it out, so off we went to the pediatrician. The doctor had Eric lie on his belly with his leg bent up at the knee.  Then the doctor fixed a tourniquet around Eric’s leg to stanch the bleeding while he sliced into the foot to free the sliver.  Eric commented, “I’m sure glad I didn’t get that sliver in my head.”

     “Why is that?” the doctor asked. “The bony skull would have stopped the sliver from going in so deep.”

     “Yeah,” Eric replied, “But I wouldn’t want that tourniquet around my neck!”

The doctor started to laugh, then laughed harder and harder, and finally had to drop his hands and finish laughing before he could pick up the instruments again, and get to work. 

     Eric can be mildly accident prone.  If I were going to tease him, I probably wouldn't think first of the tourniquet around his neck. I think of slivers and saw cuts and car wrecks, but  I'd probably start with the incident last summer when he put his finger into the mouth of a poisonous snake. Fortunately he still has enough fingers to count on.