A parent holds a phone flashlight into the child’s mouth and sees the two tonsils nearly touching in the middle. The message that comes into the clinic usually is short: “kissing tonsils cause?” The phrase is descriptive, not diagnostic. That just means the tonsils are big enough that they touch, or almost touch, in the midline, typically rated 4 on the Brodsky scale. I have seen these tonsils in the Hawthorne office, and when the clinical picture calls for it, removed them in the operating room at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. Those stories are told in Breathless: Surgical Tales from the Brink (and Back), which is available on Amazon.