WE GAVE AT THE ORIFICE
by C.L. Halvorson

My sister, Diana had, and still does for that matter, a very mischievous streak in her; especially when it came to seeing what she could get other people to do. Thankfully, we lived very close to the hospital emergency room as children.  Our poor sister, Sara, was her target for the most part.  Being the trusting soul she was, Sara would agree to try anything Diana came up with.

Sara had a toy beaded necklace.  The necklace broke and she was trying to figure out how to repair it.  Diana, seeing this, had a brilliant idea. She sat on the back stoop next to Sara.

“You know,” Diana began, “I bet those beads could be used for other things.”

“Like what?” Sara asked.

“Oh, I don’t know.  Maybe fit into other things.”

“Like what?” sometimes Sara had a rather limited vocabulary.

“Hmmm, well like I bet they would up fit up your nose,” surmised Diana.

“Why would I want to stick a bead in my nose?”

“Just to see if it fit.”

Sara eyed the blue plastic bead in her fingers.  She eyed Diana.  In spite of herself, she had allowed Diana to get her curiosity going.  Tentatively, Sara started to insert the bauble into her nostril.  It fit!

“See?  I told you it would fit,” Diana was quite pleased that her theory had proved itself out.  “Try another one.”

“If I stick one in the other side I won’t be able to breathe,” said Sara.

“Just make sure you put it in with the hole pointing down so you can breathe through the hole,” it was truly amazing to see a criminal mastermind at work.

Sara was reluctant, but willing.  She put the second bead into her other nostril taking special care to make sure she positioned it so that she could breathe through the hole.  The second one also fit and Sara wasn’t turning blue from a lack of oxygen.  Of course, she looked like she was storing nuts for the winter in her nose, but science wasn’t always pretty.

Scientific study has also shown us, that if you blow into the open end of a hollow reed a musical note is produced.  If you blow across the top of an open Coke bottle you will also produce a note.  That day’s experiment showed us that if you breathe through the hole of a bead that’s up your nostril you will also produce a musical note.  Diana was delighted by this additional discovery; but the sound made Sara suddenly panic.  Try as she might she could not dislodge the jewels from her nostrils.

“They won’t—tweet—come out—tweet­!”   Sara screamed near hysteria.

“Sure they will you just have to get hold of them.  Here, hold still,” Diana started toward Sara’s nose with grimy fingers.

“I don’t—tweet—want your dirty—tweet—fingers—tweet—up my nose!” she pushed Diana away and ran into the housing calling and whistling for Mama.  Diana was hot on her heels.

“What’s the matter?” Mama asked as she met up with the pair in the kitchen.

“Diana—tweet—made me shove beads up my nose and now—tweet—I whistle.  They won’t come out!”  Crying and panic were making the whistling louder.

Our mother dragged Sara down the hallway to the bathroom.  Mama sat her on the toilet lid, pulled out the tweezers and tilted Sara’s head back.  Mama tried to gently extract the foreign invaders but it’s difficult to pull beads out of a kid’s nose without taking nose hair with it.

“Ow—tweet!” hollered Sara.

“We’ll have to take you to the emergency room.  Whatever you do don’t sniff them up further.”

“Oh no, I didn’t think of that!  Tweet—I could suck them up into my—tweet—brain and die!” Sara could always find the worse case scenario in any situation. 

Mama hustled us all into the car and headed for the emergency room.  Once there Mama spoke to the nurse while Sara sat there crying and whistling.  After checking in, Donny Osmond came out to collect Sara.  That’s right, Donny Osmond.  All three of us just stared at him dumbstruck.  We knew Donny was a very nice boy, but imagine singing on all those records and TV shows and still having time to work at the hospital.  What a guy!  In actuality, he was a nurse at the hospital who bore a striking resemblance to Donny.  Had you going there for a second, didn’t I?

He took Sara’s hand and told her he was going to take her back to a room.  Diana and I offered our immediate assistance.  Mama glared at us and told us to go sit in the waiting room.  We were crushed!  Sara rose from her seat and looked at us gloatingly over her shoulder.  She took the handsome young nurse’s hand and flirted with him right in front of us!  Looking back, though, I doubt he was terribly impressed.  Sara was more than fifteen years his junior and, try as she might, it’s darned near impossible to look seductive while whistling through beads up your nose.

The emergency room doctor was able to retrieve one of the beads but Sara had accidentally sucked the other one up too far for him to remove.  After fifteen minutes convincing Sara that there was no way for it to end up in her brain he told Mama that “this too would pass”, if you catch my drift.  And pass it did about three days later.