A Pretty Penny

Before I even start with this story, let me tell you that when we were growing up, my older brother was always the one with all the ideas that got us into trouble:  throwing crab apples at cars, selling sherbet to strangers to make money while my parents were at work and we were off for the summer, building forts with the clean sheets…well, you get the idea.

I went along with him, and I always got the same punishment when my parents caught us doing something.  It didn’t quite seem fair, but parents…go figure.  I did try to get my revenge on him once when I threw all the toys out of the toy box and convinced him to climb in.  Then I sat on the lid.  When my parents came to ask me what all the screaming was about, I told them that I didn’t hear anything.  But they managed to rescue him before he ran out of air.

Given our history together, you’d think I would have known better when he dared me to swallow a penny.  I was a little chunky, so I ate pretty much anything.  But a penny…come on.  But then he called me a “little baby” and I couldn’t stand for that. So I snatched the penny away from him, put it in my mouth, and swallowed it.

Looking back on it now, it seems pretty remarkable, especially since I have trouble swallowing pills without water, but when you’re being dared, you do a whole lot of things you never thought you would.  My brother didn’t believe I had done it, so I opened my mouth to show him it was gone.  He poked and prodded around in my mouth with his fingers until he was convinced I had actually swallowed it.  And then, do you know what he did?  He ran into the other room to tell on me.

“Melanie swallowed a penny.  Melanie swallowed a penny.”

The next thing I know I’m surrounded by both my parents and grandparents who were visiting at the time.  And do you know what their bright idea was?  They were going to shake it out of me.  Next thing I know I’m upside down—somebody’s holding my feet and they’re shaking me up and down.  I had to close my eyes because they were making me dizzy.  They made me open my mouth, and somebody put their finger down my throat, but I have an iron stomach.  I hardly ever throw up unless I’m really sick—no bulimia for me as a teenager—no siree.

Anyway, after a while, they could see that this plan was no good.  So they gave me a laxative (something else they probably shouldn’t have done) and made me drink about a bazillion gallons of water.  It wasn’t long after that when my best friend from across the street invited me to go swimming down at the Harry Stone public pool.  But I wasn’t going anywhere except to the bathroom…all day long.  Let me tell you that then I was sorry I had swallowed that stupid penny.  And I would never have thought to do it except for my stupid brother.

The adults hovered over my every bathroom movement.  I guess they were worried that the penny would get stuck somewhere in my digestive system, but it didn’t.  It eventually came out, and they fished it out of the toilet.  Do you know it was the prettiest penny I have ever seen?  It had every color of the rainbow on it.  Makes you wonder what all goes on in our digestive tract.  So there wasn’t gold in my pot, but I sure ended up with one pretty penny!