Beauty and the Beads

“Hi, I’m Pam.  Come on back and we’ll get started.”  I rose to follow my smiling college admissions counselor back to her office.  Going back to school as an adult is exciting and scary all at the same time.  I was anxious to hear what Pam had to say about my old college credits and the exams I was about to take.

We walked in to her small office and sat down.  She began going over the list of credits that would transfer and other things.  Then, I could hear the buzzing of my cell phone in my purse.  Pam asks me if I need to take the call.

“No, it’s my husband.   He has my little one at home.  He’s her daddy.  He should be able to manage without me.”  One would think.

We laughed and went on with the meeting.  Buzz.  Buzz.  Buzz.

“Better take it.  Sorry.”  No problem, she says.

I answer to the panicked voice of my husband.  “She’s shoved beads up her nose!”

“Slow down,” I say.  “She shoved what up her nose?”  Pam’s eyes across the desk get huge.

“Beads! She got into Gracie’s beads.  She has them way up her nose!  What do I do?” he asks, completely frantic and talking a hundred miles an hour.

“You could take her to the hospital.  It’s practically across the street,” I suggest calmly.  As Max’s mom, nothing surprises me or alarms me anymore.

“You have the car seat!” he reminds me loudly.

“Okay, then call the doctor.  They can tell you what to do.”

“What’s the number?”  I rattle it off like any mother can do with a doctor’s phone number.  “Do they know her?” he asks.

“Do they know her?” I repeat.  Pam grins and shrugs.  “Of course they know her.  It’s her doctor.  I don’t just memorize random physician phone numbers.”  I am sarcastic and not panicking because I can hear Max chattering away happily in the background.  She can obviously breathe and he is panicking enough for the both of us.  “Just call them.  Kids do this all the time.  They probably know some great tricks.”

“Okay, I’ll call them.  Bye.”  He hangs up.

I calmly go back to my meeting.  Pam says she could never be that calm.  I remind her that I have three kids so this isn’t the first time one of them stuck something up their nose.  I also give her a little background on the infamous Max.  She just laughs and shakes her head.  “Okay, then.  I guess we can get back to academics!” she says.

“Yes.”

Buzz.  Buzz.  Buzz.  “Or not.  Hello?”  The voice on the other end of the phone is much calmer now, having managed to get the beads out of Max’s nose all by himself.

“He got them out,” I tell Pam, who has leaned across her desk grinning, interested to know what’s going on.

“How?” she asks.

I grin and tell her: “He said he popped her nose like a zit and they came shooting out!”  We lost it and died laughing.

Leave it to Max to make a spectacle of herself even from miles away.  Something tells me that is an admissions interview that Pam will remember for a long time.