A recent consumer near-tragedy has demonstrated once again, as if we needed any more demonstrations, why the federal government must act immediately to prohibit the sale and possession of plaid carpeting. I feel especially strong about this issue, because the near-tragedy in question involved an eight-year-old girl named Natalie who happens to be the daughter of two friends of mine, Debbie and Bill. They have agreed to let me tell their story in exchange for a promise that I would not reveal that their last name is Ordine (pronounced “Ore-dean”).

Our story begins a few months ago, when Bill bought Natalie two birthday presents, one of which was a gumball machine. Natalie of course immediately got a major wad of gum stuck in her hair and chose to correct the problem personally, without any discussion with a parent or guardian, by getting some scissors and whacking off a large segment of the right side of her hair, but that is not the near-tragedy in question. I mention it only so you’ll grasp that when it comes to buying birthday presents for an eight-year-old, Bill has no more sense than a cinder block. This is why, as the other present, he bought Natalie a popular children’s dexterity game called Operation, in which you attempt to put little humorous simulated organs into a humorous simulated person without setting off a buzzer.

Ordinarily, there would be nothing wrong with this, but it happens that Bill and Debbie have a carpet with large plaid squares on it. So as most of you have no doubt already guessed, on the afternoon of her class Christmas play, Natalie invented a game whereby she would put the little plastic heart of the Operation game into her nose to see how many squares of carpeting she could blow it across. Which is fine, provided it is done in the context of an organized league with uniforms, coaches, etc., but Natalie was doing this all on her own, and the result is that she got the heart stuck up her nose. You hate to have this kind of thing happen, because it’s not the kind of problem that will just go away by itself, like, say, a broken leg. No, if you want to deal with a heart stuck up your nose, you pretty much have to expose yourself to an assault by Modern Medicine.

So Debbie called the Emergency Room, which has of course heard of every conceivable thing being stuck in every conceivable orifice and consequently told Debbie that this was nothing to worry about, plus they were busy with some real emergencies, so Natalie should go ahead and be in her class play and come in later that evening. So Natalie performed with the heart in her nose—she was one of the Rough Kids Who Wouldn’t Go to Sleep on Christmas Eve—and then went to the hospital, where the doctor tried to get the heart out with forceps, but of course couldn’t reach it. So he decided to keep Natalie overnight and operate the next day, which he did, and of course he couldn’t find the heart.

“What do you mean, you can’t find the (bad swear word) heart?” is the parental concern Bill recalls voicing to the doctor before he (Bill) stomped off in search of a small helpless furry animal to kick in the ribs. Meanwhile, the doctor ordered a CAT scan, which is the medical procedure that evidently requires the destruction of rare porcelain figurines because it costs $810, and which of course showed no trace of the heart. So the doctor concluded that the heart must have gotten into Natalie’s digestive system, and everything would be fine and nobody should worry about it.

The bill for this medical treatment was of course $3,200.

Bill and Debbie, when they are not whimpering softly like the radiation victims in The Day After, admit they find the whole episode somewhat ironic, seeing as how it began with a game that has a medical theme. But as Bill points out, the difference is that “in real life, the doctor gets the bucks no matter what happens. In the game, you actually have to do it right.”

I should point out that the heart was, in fact, in Natalie’s digestive system. We know this because Debbie conducted a Stool Search, which I will not discuss in detail here except to say that if anybody should have been paid $3,200, it is Debbie. Also, here’s a useful tip from Debbie for those of you consumers who for some reason might wish to conduct your own stool searches at home: Make use of your freezer.

Natalie, the victim, is fine now, and will never ever ever ever put a heart of any kind in her nose again for at least several months. Bill says she took the heart to school in a Ziplock bag so she could tell her classmates the whole story. “She really spread the word about the dangers of putting pieces of games in your nose,” said Bill. “She became real evangelistic, sort of like a reformed alcoholic, or Chuck Colson.”

None of this would have happened, of course, if Bill and Debbie, who are not bad parents, really, did not have plaid carpeting. And who knows how many other unsuspecting parents have exactly the same consumer menace lurking in their family rooms? How do we know that some child is not at this very moment inserting a pretend organ into his or her nose to see how far he or she can shoot it? This child might bear in mind that the current record, held by eight-year-old Natalie Ordine, who got her name in the newspaper and everything, is only two big squares, which should be easy to beat.

Summer is almost here, boys and girls, and do you know what that means? It means it’s time to go to ... SUMMER CAMP! Neat-o, right boys and girls?! Let’s hear it for summer camp!! Hip-Hip ...”

(Long silent pause)

Listen up, boys and girls. When Uncle Dave says “Hip-Hip,” you say “Hooray!” in loud cheerful voices, OK? Because summer camp is going to be A LOT OF FUN, and if you don’t SHOW SOME ENTHUSIASM, Uncle Dave might just decide to take you on a NATURE HIKE where we IDENTIFY EVERY SINGLE TREE IN THE FOREST.

I happen to know a lot about summer camp, because, back when I was 18, I was a counselor at a camp named “Camp Sharparoon.” There is some kind of rule that says summer camps have to have comical-sounding Indian names and hold big “pow-wows” where everybody wears feathers and goes whooooo. Actual Indians, on the other hand, give their summer camps names like “Camp Stirling Hotchkiss IV” and hold dinner dances.

Camp Sharparoon was a camp for youths from inner-city New York who were popularly known at the time as “disadvantaged,” which meant they knew a LOT more about sex than I did. I was in charge of a group of 12—and 13-year-old boys, and when they’d get to talking about sex, I, the counselor, the Voice of Maturity, the Father Figure for these Troubled Children, would listen intently, occasionally contributing helpful words of guidance such as: “Really?” And: “Gosh!” There were times I would have given my right arm to be a disadvantaged youth.

Talking about sex was one of our major activities when we went camping out overnight in the woods. We counselors mostly hated camping out, but we felt obligated to do it because these kids had come from the dirty, filthy streets of the urban environment, and it seemed that they should have the opportunity to experience the untamed forest wilderness. Of course, the untamed forest wilderness contained infinitely more dirt and filth than the urban environment, not to mention a great deal of nature in the form of insects. This is why we built the urban environment in the first place.

Nevertheless, we’d set off into the woods, carrying our bedrolls, which we took along so the campers would have a safe place to go to the bathroom. Bed-wetting was a problem on camping trips, because the campers would never go out to the latrine at night. They were concerned that they might be attacked by the Swamp Man, who, according to the traditional fun campfire story we wise mature helpful counselors always told at bedtime to put the camper in the proper emotional state for sleep, was this man with slime in his hair and roots growing out of his nose who would grab you and suck your brains out through your eye sockets. So we generally woke up with at least one bedroll dampened by more than the dew, if you get my drift.