i spent my afternoon combing through gorilla poop, or how you can tell when imaginary play has gone too far

I was putting the finishing touches on my puttanesca sauce when I was summoned by Nurse Nora to come to the Busyland hospital to treat a patient. I went into the triage unit, which looked kind of like Annabelle's bed, and found a bunny who was wrapped in a blanket. I asked the Nurse what his symptoms were and she told me she didn't know, he just wasn't feeling well. I diagnosed him with fatigue and general malaise and discharged him, making a note in the chart about possible hypochondria. The next patient was a gorilla. Nurse Nora told me that he had swallowed something of his mama's. Now, here is where I went wrong. A normal mom would have said something like "ohh, sorry you feel bad, take this shot" and gone on her merry way. Actually a mom of today would probably be text messaging and not even be playing with her kid, but that is an anti-technology rant for another post. Instead, I said "hmm.... well, two spoons of Castor oil and his mom needs to sift through his poop for the next two days to make sure it passes." Then I went on my merry way, back to my sauce.

Five minutes later, nurse Nora came out with a doctor kit, two plastic cups and two spoons. "Okay. He pooped it out. It was humongous. Now we need to look through it. It is in here." (gesturing to the doctor kit)

Now, I thought about playing my "i am a doctor and this is a nurse's job" card but I knew I would not have street cred with the nurses union if I did this so I did what anyone else would have done in this situation--rolled up my sleeves and started digging.

Turns out, he ate a penny, a ring and a diamond, which goes to show you that apes will eat anything.