The Case of The Flying Eraser

Marina, California, about 1979:

Tom was working at the fire station and I had put the kids to bed. It wasn't long before Tim came out claiming Billy was crying because there was an eraser in his nose. Huh? An eraser, you know, the kind on the end of a pencil if you break if off the pencil.

So, what's an eraser doing in Billy's nose? Tim said he threw it in the air and it LANDED in Billy's nose. Right. Right. Tim threw it in the air. Right . . . It was time to deal with the problem rather than troubleshoot how it happened.

I checked out Billy. Yep. There WAS an eraser in his nose. Now I had the challenge of getting it out. Should be simple enough. I tried to get Billy to sneeze. Didn't work. I got a pair of tweezers and started poking . . . Ooops . . . I shoved it higher. Now what? Not much I could do about it that night. I'd have to deal with it first thing in the morning. I sent everybody to bed, again, and hoped Billy could sleep with this thing in his nose.

The next day I took Billy to our pediatrician. He tried to extricate the eraser, but failed. The doctor sent me to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doc. We went straight there. The nose doc assessed the problem, and called in reinforcements. They put Billy in my lap, and then two other nurses and I held him tight the doctor worked to free the eraser, or was it to free Billy? Whatever it was, it was NO PICNIC. In fact, it was VERY traumatic for everyone. It was a struggle, but the doctor won.

Billy survived. We survived. The moral to the story: Don't try to retrieve objects from your child's nose without expert help. The other moral: Sometimes it's more important to deal with the problem rather than try to get the truth out of the culprit.