Living la vita loca

"Please pick up your son. He has swallowed a pencil." says the secretary at my son's middle school. That was about noon yesterday. By 5:30 pm at he pediatric ER I sit with a 2 inch pencil, 2 copies of x-rays, and a pictures of the procedure taken through the esophagus down to the stomach. My son reposes on a gurney eating a purple Popsicle. Relieved, I hear him say "I don't think I'll ever do that again."
Minutes later a call from my husband says "Are you ready for some more news? The Nissan is dead and we need to look for a new car this weekend instead of next year, The clutch is gone again, and something has shredded, they don't know exactly what but there are metal shavings in the engine, and the distributor cap is ..."