the thousand dollar tea party

John once told me a story about a missionary who was having severe abdominal pains. Worried that it may have been something serious - such as appendicitis, the missionary's companion (who was actually John's brother) rushed him to the nearest emergency room. A series of tests were preformed, during which the elder expelled some gas, and felt immediate relief. Turns out that's all it was...pain caused by the need to break wind. The trip to the emergency room ended up costing the mission a pretty penny, and from then on, the missionary was teased incessantly about his "thousand dollar fart".
We had an occurrence at our house, involving our Asher, which I like to refer to as the "thousand dollar tea party". Thankfully everything turned out alright, or I wouldn't speak so lightly of the incident. A few weeks ago, I was in the laundry room cleaning out a mop. I decided to use some clorox for disinfecting, and must have forgotten to replace the cap in between uses. Unbeknownst to me, as I was busy swishing the mop around in bleach water, our inquisitive and mischevious little Asher, took off with the gallon of clorox. Moments later, pale as ever, and gasping for air, a very panicked Asher returned to the laundry room (where I was still busy cleaning the mop) and desperately began tugging on my leg...he was coughing like crazy. The first thing I noticed was the giant bleach spots that mottled his little blue t-shirt. Suspicious of what may have happened, I rushed to the playroom, where I discovered that my fears had been realized. I found the empty bottle of clorox laying on the ground...and displayed in a neat row on the table, were child-sized tea cups - each filled to the brim. Asher had been having himself a little tea party, but rather than using water, or juice, or cute little cups filled with strawberry milk...he went for the bleach. That's my Asher. Always has to be different.
How much he actually drank, we'll probably never know, but enough to cause intermittent vomiting while he nearly hacked up a lung for 10 minutes straight.
I called 911 right away. They kept me on the line so we could do a three-way call with poison control. The poison control operator could hear Asher coughing in the background, and instructed the 911 dispatcher to expedite the paramedics. She said that the bleach itself isn't poisonous, but if enough is ingested, it can cause serious damage (burns) to the esophagus and lungs. So literally, within just minutes, there were about 10 public employees (mainly paramedics, but a police officer or two were also present, as well as a couple of firefighters) crowded around Asher right there in our family room. As luck would have it, by the time they actually got there, his continuous coughing and vomiting, had ceased; and he was as peppy as ever. However, after checking his mouth and discovering the condition of his throat(abnormally red and irritated), they advised that we head to the hospital anyway, just to be safe. So here we are, just moments later, gearing up for our thousand dollar ride to the hospital...


The doctor whom we saw at the hospital, was very thorough in his examination, and confirmed that everything looked alright. He told us something interesting, after verifying the brand of bleach that was ingested. Clorox brand is actually very mild in comparison to some of the off- brands, which oftentimes contain unknown amounts of extremely harmful chemicals. So I guess if your kids are going to have a tea party - with bleach being the beverage of choice - make sure you buy the Clorox brand for them...it burns less going down, and the side effects are relatively mild.Either that, or just keep the Clorox out of your child's reach.
I figure I might as well save you the $1000. (As well as the trouble of having to replace your carpet).