OUR BUDDING SOCIOPATH

On a Saturday afternoon about a week ago, Will sat in his highchair and exclaimed, "uh, oh!" He had been eating lunch, but now he was clutching his nostril with a concerned look. After a little bit of questioning, he said he had stuffed a raisin up his nose. I grabbed a flashlight and could, indeed, see something dark shoved deep up his right nostril. It was up there pretty far, though, and our tweezers had sharp edges that could easily cut the inside of Will's nose.

About that time, I remembered something a paramedic once told me about what can happen to dried fruit when it's in a humid environment and how that can eventually block airways. After consulting with a nurse friend of ours (Hi, Ronnie!) we loaded Will up in the car and took him to the doctor's office.

Luckily for us, our pediatrician actually has Saturday office hours. Will strode into the office and declared, "I have a raisin in my nose." We paid our $20 co-pay and moments later, a doctor with remarkable skills removed the raisin in a split second. I took will back out to the car, gave him a big hug, and told him how scary that was and how I was glad he was OK. I hoped he had learned his lesson.

He had, just not the right lesson.

It's Saturday night, last night, and Will is sitting in his highchair. When our backs are turned, we hear, "uh, oh" from Will, and he's grasping at his nose. "Will put goldfish in nose!"

AGAIN? YOU SHOVED SOMETHING UP YOUR NOSE AGAIN? OH, COME ON KID! YOU ACT REALLY SMART, BUT THAT'S JUST ABOUT THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD!

Instead of delivering that rant, I grab a flashlight and peered up his nose. There is something orange lodged deep up there. All the doctor's offices are closed, so this time we have to go to the emergency room. We bundle up Will and take him out to the car. But something seems odd as Will waves goodbye to his brother Nate, who was starting to cry because he isn't getting to go on the car ride with Daddy. Will was smiling broadly. We get into the car and Will joyfully declares, "We're going to the doctor!"

We arrive at the ER, march up to the desk, pay our $75 co-pay and will shouts, "I have a goldfish up my nose!"

We wait, and wait, and wait. Will bounces off the waiting room walls and points out which light bulbs have burned out and asking me to fix them. He asks to play games and read stories. He's having the time of his life.

We are eventually ushered into a room where we wait some more and fill out forms and wait some more and Will is starting to grow tired and we wait some more and someone comes in to check that we're insured and we wait some more. After about 30 minutes in the room, a doctor comes in and looks into Will's nose.

"Which nostril is the goldfish in?" the doctor asks.

"The right," I say, as Will points to his left nostril.

The doctor furrows her eyebrows and checks both, then wipes off her lens, and checks again. She pinches Will's upper nose and looks again.

After a few more moments, she was ready with her diagnosis: your son is a liar.

That's right, there is absolutely no evidence of a foreign object being shoved up Will's nose. That orange thing I saw with the flashlight a few hours earlier? Most likely a booger. On the drive home, Will confesses to the whole thing.

Now it's Sunday and we're still dealing with the reality that we either have an Oscar-worthy actor on our hands or a pathological liar. Of course, there is a lot of overlap in those categories.

Needless to say, he's grounded until he's 25.