A weird night of weird ailments

After a long day at the office I was looking forward to an evening at home, getting the kids tucked in and going to bed early to recover from the previous night's lack of sleep... But no:

Weird ailment #1
Allison's earrings were bothering her so we decided to treat her ears and earrings with alcohol. She went to take the earrings out and soon came running down the hall crying. "The back is stuck inside!!"

Yep, the little rubber, stopper-like back was inside her earlobe. On both ears. I gave a good tug to the left earring and the whole earring, with the back still on the post, came through her ear. Ouch! Her right ear was a little infected, and my tugging trick did not work.

So, off to urgent care we go, where they assured me they've done this before. Seriously?

They applied numbing cream and after a half hour wait for it to take effect, the pediatrician squeezed the rubber back out of her earlobe. We were sent home with care instructions titled "Foreign object under the skin: removed" and advice from the doc to use "high quality" earrings for a while. That's nice, because we don't have any really high quality earrings, just the ones labeled "sensitive" from Justice.

We stop to get gas on the way home and see a Kohl's -- hey! we can run across the street to get high quality earrings before we head home. It's 9:30 PM by now, so what's another half hour? But no:

Weird ailment #2
As I finished pumping gas I feel excruciating pain in my right foot and discover my middle toe is out of its socket. I get back in the car and try to act cool, but I can hardly move. I see another car pull up to wait for my pump. But I've taken off my shoe and I'm trying to work my foot back into proper form. I can hardly extend my leg to the accelerator, and pressure on the pedal nearly brings me to tears. The people waiting for my pump get ticked and drive off.
Through the pain, I pull the car away from the gas station but can hardly push on the accelerator. The Kohl's parking lot is a welcome alternative to sitting on Main street.

After about 10 minutes of off-and-on pain, Allison is in the back seat praying for my foot to heal, and I'm on the phone with Matt to find a way to come get us. A few minutes later the pain subsides to dull ache. I think the toe is back in place. It's 9:55 now, and we decide to walk into Kohls to test out the toe. In what we can only assume was an answer to prayer, a friend was driving through the area at that time and called us, and offered to pick us up!

We killed time waiting for her by purchasing a pair of high quality earrings.

Since the pain had subsided, I felt like I could drive. My friend graciously agreed to follow me home in case I had another toe episode.

So, now I sit here with an ice pack on the offending foot, and Allison is sleeping soundly with her new high quality earrings in her ears.