Urgent Care Chronicles

I've had a busy summer. Last week as I approached the counter at urgent care, I got a sympathetic smile of recognition from the gal signing us in. They know me by sight now. This is our family's fourth visit in as many weeks.
I hate going to urgent care. For the most part, I'm there because one of my boys has done something inconsistent with his intelligence. I have two types of boys. Half got the mental toughness gene, half have to work at it. It's always the ones who have to work at it that get hurt. Why is that?
One boy was doing materials experiments in his room. It seemed like a good idea to use a 10 pound weight to smash a metal incense bowl left by our exchange student. Little metal discs had neat designs epoxied to them, and when they were smashed, they looked cool. Who wouldn't do that? Well, he squished his finger too. Little finger guts were coming out. He was sure he was going to die. He very loudly wished he would die. He howled that he wished he'd never been born. He was positive there was some metal still inside the finger guts. There was no metal there. He needed no stitches, it was too messy to close up. They bandaged it and it was good as new in a few days.
If you ask my other boy how he ended up with a sliver of glass in the pad of his foot, he'll give you a long, complicated story that begins with soccer in the back yard and ends with him standing on one leg with his foot in the kitchen sink. The offending glass shard left over from a dropped jam jar became lodged in his foot as he balanced on it with the other foot in the sink. Makes perfect sense, right? I tried to dig out the glass, but no dice. We've learned with this boy that a sliver of glass can become a big deal.
A few years ago, a tiny sliver of glass in his big toe developed a wicked black spot that just kept growing. I was hoping it would just work it's way out, but as the red streaks were working their way up his leg, we opted for the ER. After some gross toe squirting and IV antibiotics, he sported a hole the size of a marble in his toe. No school for over a week until he could wear a shoe.
When this current shard of glass started to get a little sore and red, I decided to nip it in the bud. There was some trauma over the shots, but once the foot was numb and digging commenced, he was fine. The digging went on and on. After a while, the Doc gave up. He said he couldn't find it. He told me it would have to just work it's way out. By this time, I'm having liquefied toe tissue flashbacks. Just as the Dr. was ready to bandage him up, my boy asks, "What's that shiny thing right there on my foot?" Sure enough, an inch away from the dig, was the shard of glass. It had been flushed out by the bleeding and wiping. I heaved a huge sigh of relief.
Any bets on how long it'll be before I'm hauling another tearful and luckless boy back there?