Something
horrible happened to me a little
while ago.
I'm at work, by myself, and am
getting over a mild cold. A few
people come in, and I'm in the
middle of a presentation when I
notice something: every time I
exhale, there's a high-pitched
whistling sound in my right
nostril, accomponied by a
feeling of something moving back
and forth. Oh, no... nose
nuggets!
At this point more people have
come in, so I try to ignore it
and press on. But then my mind
starts spinning. What if it's a
"dangler"? Is it sitting out in
the open? Is it swinging like a
circus trapeze? Is it an
expanding and contracting bubble
every time I breathe? You would
figure someone would say
something if it was out in the
open, but perhaps they're being
nice and ignoring it, until they
get home and tell all their
friends and family about the
"booger boy" they saw today.
Finally I couldn't take it
anymore. I scooted to the back,
grabbed a tissue and blew.
Nothing! I tried again. Still
nothing. That bad boy did NOT
want to come out. In
desperation, I went back to an
old, reliable method of nostril
excavation that I used
frequently at my old job as a
warehouse selector: I placed my
thumb over the clean nostril,
and as hard as I could, blew out
the afflicted nostril. This is
sometimes referred to eloquently
as the "snot rocket". Success!
No more whistling!
I walked back out, feeling clean
and confident. No sooner that I
started talking, though, did the
elderly lady say "Um, you have
something on..." and gestured to
my chest. To my absolute horror,
there -- right above the "Oreck
XL" on my shirt, was a
greenish-brown boulder the
approximate size of the
Chixcalub impactor. I dashed
into the back, removed the toxic
mass, and sheepishly came back
out, about the deepest shade of
red possible.
The moral of the story is the
same moral that Ben Stiller
learned in There's Something
About Mary: If you expel
something out of your body, make
damn sure you're not wearing it.