Dried viscous colloidal mucus tales
2020-06-08 Comments
At this moment in time when it is essential to keep a high level of hygiene, I thought I would share some tales about what I have experienced with bodily outputs. Dried snot, commonly known as bogeys or boogers.
Admittedly, I used to be a pick and flick kinda gal. But not just anywhere, mostly in my bedroom and onto the floor directly beneath the side of the bed - not into the great unknown, like some people I know. So to my surprise I married a pick and flicker too. Although, he flings his pickings into the air, indiscriminately and in any room he happens to be in. My first clue was when I walked into the bathroom and found one of his masterpieces on the wall above the toilet. It must have been whilst he was reading on the loo and he absentmindedly flung his booger over his shoulder and the wet end attached itself to the wall. I didn’t say anything the first time it happened. I grabbed a section of loo roll, scraped it off and threw it into the toilet. The second time it happened, near enough where the first bogey landed I asked my husband if he was responsible for the skinny green artwork in the bathroom. Of course he didn’t know what I was on about. So I led him into the bathroom to witness the gravity-defying dangle of an off green-grey nose shrapnel. He said with a grin that, “it might have been” him. But since then, I haven’t found any hanging out on the bathroom walls.
I, myself, have moved on from picking and flicking and now put them into a tissue. Unfortunately for my husband, I tend to leave the tissue on the coffee table. There’s still a lot of capacity left in the tissue for further pickings or if I want to blow my nose. He told me off and said that’s how plagues get started!
My earliest gross incident of a sticky fresh bogey was back in primary school, the memory has haunted me ever since the age of 5. I was sitting in class one day around a table of 3 other kids and the boy 2 tables across was being rather disgusting, picking his nose and wiping the results on other kids' sleeves. Anyway, someone on my table shouted at him to stop. But rather than doing so, he rummaged deep inside one of his nostrils and produced something which he put on the end of a ruler and proceeded to ping it over in our direction. Typically, it missed its target and landed at the top of my piece of work. It made me very queasy. Worse still, was I didn’t have anything to get rid of it. I couldn’t have it there taunting me, so I ripped my bit of paper and folded it up to put in the bin. I can still feel the squidge of it as I folded the paper over, blurgh!
I just can’t escape bogeys flying at me. But who’d have thought it would happen at work. I was due my annual review with my boss. We sat side by side with the paperwork laid out in front of us. We started off with light conversation and then my boss had some kind of tickle so rubbed his nose. The next moment he was in mid conversation when something shot out of his nose and landed between us. He surreptitiously tried to brush his dry round dark booger away with the back of his hand, but I had seen it already. To preserve his dignity and my performance review, I carried on like it hadn’t happened, all the while trying not to laugh. Well...wouldn’t you? If you saw a little black rock fly out, at speed, from someone’s nose?
The following week, I was driving home from work and got stuck in traffic. The car in front of me was caught at the lights so I had to wait behind him. The driver suddenly started to pick his ears. He stuck his finger in his ear, waggled it about and then ate it. I wasn’t sure what I’d seen at first but when he did it to the other side too, I was shocked. But just to top it all off, I looked away at my rearview mirror and saw the guy behind me picking his nose. He was having a good old rummage. I think it must have been a Friday because drivers were getting way too relaxed in their cars.
The most impressive booger I’ve ever seen was one of my daughter’s. She must have been about a couple of months old. Babies can’t blow or pick their nose, so I guess hers had just built up, eventually blocking her nose. I saw something dark and crusty hanging out her nostril, so I got a tissue and tried to catch and remove it. She was still, so I managed to hook it out. I pulled slowly but the booger kept coming. It was like a feather boa out of a magician’s sleeve. Also, as it came out it appeared to expand, fattening itself as it slid out of the tiny hole. It was about 3cm long in all it’s greeny brown glory. I was so surprised, I showed my husband when he got home from work. I’m not sure why, but he didn’t seem to be as impressed as I was. He humours me even now, when I bring up the story of the big fat bogey coming out of daughter's tiny nose.