I am a Change Agent

When I was a young girl I would go to church with my mother, who was an organist and choir director.  As she practiced the hymns for the service, I’d wander around the pews and read passages from the bible.  My older brother had been teaching me new tricks.  One, was how to catch things in my mouth.  So I practiced with my Sunday school offering, a quarter.  I would toss it up and try and catch it in my mouth.  Most of the time it would fall to the floor and I would have to clamber under the pews to find it.  But once, it slipped right into my mouth, down the back of the throat and, slurp!  It was gone!  I swallowed it! 

I was sitting quietly as my mother played the last hymn that alerted the children to leave service and head downstairs to Sunday school.  She looked back at me and asked, “where is your offering?” meaning the quarter, which I had swallowed about 15 minutes earlier.  “I swallowed it” I said.  She looked at me and then her face went white with panic.  She stood up and called to the Minister.  Service was stopped and she called the Catholic Church, where my father and brother were in their own Sunday service and apparently, a lay-person had to interrupt the Priest in the middle of his sermon to ask him to notify my father that there was a family emergency and to meet his wife at the Lutheran Church immediately. 

All the while, I felt fine.  I wasn’t quite sure what all the panic was for.  My brother smirked at me when they arrived to the church.  My father was impatient and annoyed that my mother interrupted service so this minor offense.  “She’ll just shit it out!” my father sighed. 

Nonetheless, we drove the 15 miles to the hospital; I was admitted to the emergency room.   Our family doctor happened to be on call and appeared from behind the curtain, ear to ear with a grin that noted his pure delight in this latest catastrophe I’d gotten myself into.  Earlier that year I had fallen on my bicycle and well, I required stitches in a rather conspicuous place. 

“What seems to be the kerfuffle this time?” he asked.   “She swallowed a quarter.  Her Sunday school offering.” my mother pressed.  He looked me over, took my pulse, my temperature, and looked into my eyes.  “Well, there’s not much we can do.  I can take an X-ray to make sure it’s not stuck anywhere.  Likely, we’ll just have to wait until she, ah, discards of it naturally” the doctor said. 

Xrays were taken.  You could see Washington’s head and the date on the face.  My brother took them to show-and-tell at his school.  For a few days, my mother would examine the contents of my bowel movements.   My father told her that this was her project and he’d have nothing to do with it.  She gave up after a few times.  “Yuck!” she'd scream as she was riffling through my poo. 

We never did find the quarter.  The inside family joke is that I made change: two dimes and a nickel.  I guess we just never saw them come out.  And that is why now believe it was my destiny to be a "change agent".