True story: I was at the mall, and as a result of a bet I had consumed two liters of diet cola laced with soy sauce. On the way to the bathroom I was preceded by two college age girls immediately in front of me. We had just come in sight of the bathroom doors when they stopped, and one addressed the other:
     “Oh, it looks like they’re all handicapped.”
     As one, the two turned and walked back the way they came, sparing me only a puzzled glance as they saw me bite my lower lip hard, at once releasing torrents of blood and letting loose the sad, quiet noise that typically accompanies the death of one’s faith in the next generation.
     I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, and think that perhaps they were scouting out the johns for a crippled friend with a full bladder.
     Hell, I would actually be relieved to find out that they were part of a Neo-Nazi group hell-bent on slaughtering any women who allow their bare bottoms to touch toilettes sullied by genetically inferior specimens. But no, I really think that the most plausible explanation is that they are just very, very stupid indeed.
     But sometimes smart people do stupid things, too. Like yesterday when an otherwise intelligent legal administrator sent me this email: “We cannot send any outgoing e-mails - they all fail. Please fix. Thanks”
Think about it: she sent this via Email. I received this message exactly two minutes after fixing the email server.
More excusable, perhaps, is when people do dumb things because they are tiny, cute, and very young. Like what Sammy did on Friday.

     I love it when people turn perfectly serviceable statements into vague questions that don’t deserve answers.
     “Hi, this is Christine, from Eastgate Early Learning Center?” came the voice on the phone.
     “Yes,” I replied, “you are.”
     “Um. Right. Sam has an unpopped kernel of popcorn stuck in her nose, and we can’t get it out.”
     This is no joke. Don’t you dare laugh, either! It was already 4:30, so I told the girl that Heather would take care of it when she picked Sammy up, which usually happened around 5:00.
     “Until then,” I advised, “keep any microwave generating devices such as cell phones away from my daughter or I will fucking sue your ass into the ground.”
     “What?”
     “So help me, if that kernel pops and damages her brain-meats –wait, was this Pop-Secret or Orville Reddenbacher?”
     “I, uh… Gordon Food Service brand, I think. Why?”
     “Thank God,” I responded, “It’s probably safe. Chances are, it’s an unpoppable clinker.”
     “Oh, good.” She sounded relieved.
     “At least, you’d better hope it is.”

     I was, at that time, in my store along with my employees, plotting out the details of a pending full scale assault on a neighboring “Espresso House” when I got that call. I explained to them the current situation.
     What followed was a full-on confessional, whereby each person present told their personal tragic stories of foreign objects lodged in various orifices. Sortof like Canterbury Tales, but with more…foreign objects lodged in various orifices.
     My tale was of a wadded straw wrapper in the ear canal at age 5. It unravelled as they pulled it free, and its unique wax encrusted visage caused the doctor to misdiagnose it as a worm until he disected it and found the mysterious glyphs reading “Burger King, (C) 1977″.
     Jason’s story was pretty repulsive: a lump of sponge in the nose at age 4 which putrified and caused everyone to wonder why lil’ Jason smelled of death until it was finally discovered by an enterprising pediatrician. Jason then volunteered that his father, who suffers from a freakishly deformed ear-canal which must be cleaned with a coke spoon every six months, once waited eight months between cleanings and his ear wax ultimately rotted and then smelled strikingly similar to peanut butter cups. Mmmm… I love ear wax.
     Mike’s youthful ordeal was, by far, the most disturbing. After complaining for a week that he was periodically hearing thumping noises, it was discovered that he had a conjoined twin growing in his ear canal which had openned up a Notary Public and was engaging in sloppy record keeping. Alright, that’s not true. It was actually a spider. The thumping was the noise a spider makes when spinning a web, I suppose. Which is worse, really? I mean, everyone could use a Notary Public in the family, right?

     Heather soon called and told me that she had already been to urgent care, where a nice middle eastern man did his best, but couldn’t pick my daughter’s nose. She was now heading to the emergency room at St John’s Hospital in Warren. I arrived shortly thereafter and accompanied Sam into the bowels of the medical establishment.
     Sam charmed the crap out of everyone and everything, including a bullet riddled corpse she discovered strapped to a gurney, which mustered up all of it’s remaining chi, reanimated itself, lurched upright and pinched Sam’s cute little cheeks, saying, “Awrrrgh!” Touching, really, but I made that up.
     The ER docs then take a crack at getting the Seed of the Corn of Popping (+5 against the undead!) from out of her nasal passage, but failed, making me and Sam cry. They summon a specialist, for whom we must then wait. Hours pass, and Sam becomes noticeably less charming. I took some pictures (click for larger versions):

     The specialist, when he came, donned a miner’s helmet and went to work. We wrapped Sam like a tamale and then Heather, I, “Muscular Male Nurse” and “Craggy Old Female Nurse” worked together to hold down her squirming, kicking form as our new doctor friend went spelunking through Sam’s sinuses.
     Sam screamed herself hoarse, and then started trying to talk her way out of the pridicament. She said, in no particular order:

• I need my sandals on!
• I’m hot!
• I have to go poddy!
• I want to give daddy a hug!
  • (I almost cried when she said that)
• I have a secret! I want to tell Mommy the secret! In private!
• I’m choking!
• there is no popcorn kernel! (that’s right, Neo.)
• I have an explosive device strapped to my chest and I’ll set it off if you don’t give in to my demands as follows: free passage home, two Barbie dolls, a My Little Pony VHS tape and a liter of Kool-Aid.

     Sam lay flat, with her right nostril spread wide by the doctor’s spreader-tool-thingy. He reached into her head with his amazing assortment of scarey little grabby tools and nose spreader.
     “Don’t touch the sides, Doc!” I yelled, “BZZZZZZZ!”
     Something tells me he lost his sence of humor in the war.
     Anyway, it seemed to go on forever, but soon Sam was tearfully hugging mommy and I was in possession of a plump, unpopped, food-service grade kernel of popcorn coated with just a hint of blood and mucus. It was almost midnight.
     When asked why she shoved the corn up her nose, Sam’s answer was, “I did it to show faith!”
     Holy Moses in a pork-pie, a metaphysical statement of cause?!? “What do you mean, Sam? Faith in what?”
     “She said I couldn’t put popcorn in my nose.”
Oh, Faith was just another girl. Wouldn’t Sam Kinnison be disapointed?