We took the medical tour; eyes, ears, nose and throat. Today was Ear Day. The girl had a Volkswagon VW, a 1950s metallic Christmas tree and a reupholstered floral love seat removed from her ears. Oh, and an aging tube that didn’t come out on its own. I got to look through the giant lighted magnifying device and you know those caves with the giant stalactites and stalagmites, common in southern Missouri? Yeah, it looked like that. I loved the pediatric ENT so much I could have smooched him right then and there, even though we had to wait 45 minutes to see him. Wait, make that NINE YEARS and 45 minutes as it’s been that long since the girl has had ear woes and TODAY someone fixed them. Just. Like. That.

Anyway, in the waiting room between the audiologists’ and the ENT’s offices, the girl, peering over my shoulder, saw a photo of some dead star in the obit section.

“I’m donating to the buy her braces fund,” she said.

“Petunia!” (not her real name, but a name my mother used to call me and people’s fake names for their kids always crack me up. Once, a guy at Sears in the paint department created the color Petunia just for me.) I said, “that’s not very nice.”

“Hey, you said it first,” she said.

“I did?”

“Yeah, you said, ‘I’m donating to the Hannah Montana orthodontia fund,’” she said.

And she’s right. I did. Somebody get Billy Ray Cyrus’s kid some braces.

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