Last weekend I had to take my son to the ER because of a headache that had him screaming in pain (diagnosis: stress headache. Even hippie school students feel the pressure!). We live in a suburb with one hospital, which is located on a tree-lined street surrounded by century homes. It’s not exactly County General from ER, is my point.

And yet, as we bustled into the waiting room, we found this playing on the television at three o’clock in the afternoon:

I was mortified. My eight-year-old gun-loving son was utterly delighted. The Serb was unfazed. He pointed out that when it comes to our family and ER weirdness, this was to be expected. Then, as we tried to distract our son from Tony Montana’s demise, the Serb reminded me of two classic ER visits:

Brain Leaking From Nose:
When my daughter was two-years-old, she approached me crying and pointing to her face. She was swollen from her eye to her chin on one side. She wailed and thrashed when I tried to touch her and, being the sensible mother that I am, I immediately assumed a tumour in her brain had burst and then I started freaking out.

I think I drove her to the hospital because we ended up in our car in the ER parking lot, but I have no memory of the trip because my daughter’s nose had started leaking a thick, green-red mucous at an alarming rate. We were immediately triaged and told that it wouldn’t be a long wait.

I clutched my daughter to me in the waiting room with a cloth over her nose to catch the gunk until her thundering sobs had subsided to pathetic whimpers. I slowly removed the cloth and there it was, sticking out of her nostril: a purple Light Bright piece. I don’t think I even told the nurse I was leaving.

Weirdly Wedged Foreign Objects:
I’ve documented exactly how I get so sexy for the Serb in the past, and part of that ritual involves sticking Kleenex up my nose when it’s allergy season (or cold and flu season, so basically every night).

One night I woke up with a start. Something was lodged in my sinus cavity, similar to when a piece of carrot gets stuck up there (or is that only me?). I spent the rest of the night getting kicked by my husband while I made disgusting snarfing sounds with my throat, trying to loosen whatever was stuck in my head.

In the morning I realized that one of my Kleenex wads nose plugs was missing. A quick Google search (“Kleenex stuck in nose”) confirmed my suspicions: a tissue stuck in my head would definitely fester and lead to death unless action was taken to remove it.

First I dragged my family to a walk-in clinic where a doctor poked and prodded my proboscis before declaring me clear of foreign objects. I didn’t believe him. The Serb went home with the kids (rolling his eyes the whole way) while I hauled my clogged cookies to the ER. I may have exaggerated my discomfort slightly to the doctor there and he ordered an X-ray to get to the bottom of things. He peered at me over the folder holding the results.

“Before I tell you the findings, do you promise not to stick Kleenex up your nose?” he asked.

“I promise,” I answered.

“Good,” he replied. “We see a lot of things stuck in a lot of places, but there’s nothing in your sinus cavity that shouldn’t be there.”

By this point I was feeling a lot better. Like, perfectly fine. I thanked the doctor and left before he realized that my family stuck crap up their noses and signed me up for a TLC show, like that one where they eat diapers.

*This post is dedicated to my sister the nurse, who puts up with my frantic phone calls concerning the likelihood of brains leaking from one’s nose. (Answer: Not likely. But also not impossible.)