Giving New Meaning to Passing the Hat

One of the best parts of any holiday break is when the children go back to school. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy hanging out with my kids – but being in the house with them for 3 weeks straight can get a little monotonous for all of us.

Last week, my son GT decided to entertain himself with a game of Monopoly. Naturally he didn’t want to play the actual game. No, he decided to simply amuse himself by trying to see how far he could spit each of the little metal game pieces across the room. Yes, I said spit. He’s a 7 year-old boy. They like to spit.

I can’t make this stuff up.

Now, I was in the kitchen eating some soup for lunch when all of this took place – otherwise I would have put a stop to it.

Suddenly GT started screaming and crying, “MOM! QUICK! I NEED WATER! I NEED WATER!”

I grabbed the water I’d been drinking and ran into the room.

“What happened? What happened??” I demanded, alarmed at his behavior. He glugged down the water, ignoring me.

This is when his sister got in on the action. “WHAT HAPPENED!” she bellowed. “I don’t know,” I answered.

At this point, my son put down the water and clutched his stomach, moaning and crying aloud, “Am I going to DIE??”

I squatted down so that I could be at eye-level with GT. I placed my hands firmly on his shoulders. “Son,” I said calmly, because he was still very agitated, “What is going on?”

“I swallowed a game piece!” he sobbed, “It’s stuck in my throat! What’s going to HAPPEN?!?! AM I GOING TO DIE!!!”

“I CAN HELP!” yelled my daughter, caught up in the emotion. She rushed over and stood behind GT. “I can give you the HEIMLICH!”

I hugged him and stood up. I took my daughter by the hand, taking it away from his waist, to prevent the overzealous squeezing that I knew was about to happen.

“You’re not going to die,” I assured him, “You’re talking and crying, which means that you can breathe. You’re not choking… so no need for the Heimlich.” I gave my daughter a pointed look. “Although that was a very helpful idea, ST,” I said, “I think the worst that’s going to happen is that it’s going to go in his stomach and he’s going to poop it out. Can you show me which game it was from?”

My son nodded, mutely, still crying and upset, and pointed to the Monopoly game box. Uh-oh, I thought, METAL game piece. “Which one was it?” I asked. “The hat,” he answered woefully, adding, “Ohhh, the hat.”

Oh. The Hat.

“Does it still feel like it’s in your throat?” I quizzed. He nodded again. I sighed.

“OK, well then we’d better go to the emergency room, just in case. Although I think you’ll probably be fine,” I added quickly, since he was still pretty upset.

On the way over, I soothed him with stories about how kids swallow things all the time and normally the human body can sort this sort of thing out. I explained digestion. I explained intestines. I explained how poop works. After he quieted, he was raptly attentive to the whole lesson.

3 hours, one x-ray, and one $150 co-pay later, the prognosis was as I thought: the hat was already in his lower intestine and was on track to be eliminated naturally in the next 24-48 hours. “You will, however,” said the male nurse, “need to check his stool to make sure it passes.”

“But I don’t have a stool,” murmured GT, mostly to himself.
“He’s talking about your poop,” I muttered back, watching his face brighten at the news.

The story finishes with the happy ending that he did, indeed, poop it out. He was delighted for the next 2 days to tell me and his father when he pooped and then would stand outside the bathroom giggling while we checked. Honestly, it was disgusting. When I relayed the happy outcome to my parents, my dad laughed. “Talk about passing the hat!” he chuckled.

“Oh shut up,” I replied.