Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

A couple of days ago, Julia found a "lucky penny" (which was actually a dime) on a dressing room floor at the mall. Julia loves finding a lucky penny. And so she spent the next day rubbing it and holding it up to her face and talking about it, all while I admonished-

"Keep it away from your brother."
"Don't put it in your mouth."

Then yesterday morning, as she's eating her cereal, she says to me in a very low voice:
"I have to tell you I did something. Last night I swallowed my lucky penny on accident, but it didn't hurt and I didn't choke."

I, because I am a giant asshole, say -
"WHAT? What? Oh, great! Now we're going to have to watch your poop, and if you don't poop it out, we're going to have to go to the hospital and get an x-ray!"

And just like that, I'm out of the running for Mother of the Year.

Sean says, "Kelly!" and Julia bursts into tears. Between great, wracking sobs, she keeps repeating "You're just joking, right? You're just joking?" and I spend the next fifteen minutes assuring her that I was totally joking and that I was so, so sorry.

Thus began Dime Watch '11. I am certainly not fishing turds out of the bowl. After the first evacuation after 'the incident', I considered, for the briefest moment, scooping them out and putting them in a plastic baggy to squish them and see if they contained the dime. Even typing it out makes me a little gaggy. But there will be no fecal postmortem. I'm relying instead on my faith in simple sense: If it's small enough to go down one hole, it's small enough to come out another.

Julia, meanwhile, is redefining "lucky".

(Click the golden thumb, please!)