The Cyto Brush

I had an appointment with my OBGYN today.  I was doing my thing, lying back in the chair, when I saw the doctor pull out this small plastic stick with something on the end that looked a lot like an eyelash curler brush.   After he got whatever sample he needed, I asked him what he just used.

He said, "it's a cyto brush, used for pap smears."  I said, "I was wondering what those were used for, I have some at home."  He looked at me a bit strange so I followed up with, "have you ever heard of The Scrap Exchange?"  That didn't help.  He looked at me more suspiciously, laughed and said, "no, but now I'm curious."

I tried to explain how The Scrap Exchange took donations of all kinds of materials like old records, cloth, paper products, wood, metal tile, as well as medical products (sterile and non-used) and sold them for children and adults to use in up cycling the products into art or crafts or whatever they want to use them for. 

He still wasn't sure so I protested, "they weren't used!"  He laughed again as I explained how great they were for cleaning out straws from reusable water bottles or getting dirt out of a tight spot.  He said, "I never thought of using them for anything else.  I have a Camel Back backpack and I've always had the worst time cleaning out the tubes.  I'm taking some of these home tonight!"

I wonder what my husband will think when he reads this and discovers I've been cleaning out our straws with pap smear sticks though?

The Big Boy Update:  Spiderman.  Blake was coming over to watch the children this afternoon and my son decided it would be helpful if he dressed up as Spiderman for the occasion.  He later decided that being Spiderman wasn't such a good idea as it made it hard for him to go to the bathroom because he couldn't get the costume off himself. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  After I left this evening the following conversation happened between my husband and my daughter:  "Where's mommy?"  "Out."  "I want her to come in."   "She's not here."  "I want her to come here."  "She's at girl's night."  "I want to go to girl's night!"