Well, that was scary

So we get home after a long night. I'm just a bit winded, so I reach for the inhaler in my pocket. As usual, I blow into it before taking a puff - learned that trick after inhaling a bit of pocket lint. Puffer to mouth, squeeze, inhale-

The instant I take the puff, I feel SOMETHING in the back of my throat.

DEEP in the back of my throat.

IN a VERY BAD PLACE deep in the back of my throat.

Much hacking, gagging, etc. ensues. "Dad, are you OK?"

"No!" I gasp. (I note that I can move air, and that this is a Good Thing. I had been contemplating how to give myself a Heimlich.)

A laundry basket, then a trash can appear in my tears-on-glasses-blurred field of vision. The noises I"m making, it's clear Dad's gonna blow chunks. Or eject a hairball. Or something, but get the man a trash can.

Cough, hack, hack, cough... the THING goes down. Sort of.

"Water!" It appears, is consumed, helps somewhat.

"Kids, I think I just swallowed a quarter." I contemplate driving myself to the ER, leaving kids home alone all evening. Suboptimal.

I do a FOD check of my pocket contents and the little dish into which I dump pocket contents. I also check to see if a US Quarter will fit sideways into the opening of an inhaler, because it feels like I just swallowed something that size. (It doesn't.)

FOD check reveals that of the four tire-valve caps I had had in my pocket (I'd put air in the tires earlier, but did not replace the valve-stem caps), only three can be accounted for.

After several careful breaths, I'm fairly sure that I did not inhale one of them into my lungs, but rather swallowed it (THANK YOU, epiglottis!).

I do hope that stomach acid dissolves that particular kind of plastic.