For those of you who doubt my newfound blogging commitment, this makes two days in a row. Bask in my radiant awesomeness, bitches!
Now, I don't want to run off any new readers... but I've got to keep true to my core readership here. You newbies will just have to trust me when I say I only occasionally write about grody stuff. But today, I'm going to tell you all a tale that involves my number-one referred search string: snot.
Strap yourselves in, because this is a long one... Those readers with heart conditions or expectant mothers may want to skip this post... please keep all arms inside the cart, folks - here we go.
It's that time of year again, when my sinuses are coming off the winter lull and getting ready for a full-on pollen-palooza. All last week, my nose was feeling especially full... which is understandable, but no matter how hard or strategically I blew my nose that feeling couldn't be remedied. Finally, in a quiet moment of desperation, I decided something would have to be done about this problem. There was no other way around it: I would have to go in there and investigate.
So I booked some time all to myself and geared up to go spelunking with my magical nose goblins. Not long at all into my expedition, I quickly arrived at the source of the irritating "full" feeling, and it was not what I had expected. Instead of the cave-in or other blockage in the passageway that I anticipated, I found the way clear... but on the interior wall I found an unwelcome guest. I had a zit inside my nostril, and it was loaded for bear.
Pain immediately shot through my face as I sussed out the extent of my nasal resident. I could barely feel the little fucker, but he was letting me know in no uncertain terms that he meant business. From his small size, I knew he was just getting started, and the next week or so would be one of increasing constant pain as it grew and grew. It would also be a demanding test of my self-restraint, as I would be sorely tempted to get in there and somehow forcibly evict the zitling menace. How little I knew...
On Friday morning, I looked in the mirror and set a steely glare on myself. I set my jaw and through clenched teeth I repeated the mantra I'd developed to see myself through this episode:
"I will not fuck with this thing in my nose."
"Fucking with it only makes things worse."
"Fucking with it doesn't help me at all."
(Yeah, I know... I'm a veritable mentat over here. Here I go folding space and time because of my nose-zit.)
It was then, that I noticed a new development. My nasal invader had taken my policy of passive resistance as a sign of weakness, and was upping the ante. I stood agape staring at my reflection, refusing to believe what I saw with my own eyes. On the outside of my schnoz was a small red lump - that son of a bitch was growing out the other fucking side of my nose! As a famous Lagomorphic-American once said: "Of course you know, this means war!"
Now I've seen enough Clearasil ads to know the biology behind the formation of pimples, and I've got the better part of a college education to rationalize that they have to have a "bottom" somewhere... but I never expected to see one in the flesh. This was a completely new experience for me, but I think I handled the shock and horror with my customary dignity and grace.
So after hollering the foulest epithets I could think of at the mirror for about 15 minutes, I got serious about planning the demise of my nose's bane. I knew I couldn't wage a conventional battle effectively, since huffing Clearasil would do more damage to me than him. Therefore, only one course of action was open - a sneak attack from the rear flank. He was still growing, so I would wait him out until the time was right to strike a fatal blow.
With my low tolerance for the "battle of the boil," as I had taken to calling it, I knew that self-control would be the key to this war. If I could stay my hand until zero hour, then I would ultimately defeat my foe.
Tonight, the time for my attack arrived. A small sickly-white bulge had formed amid the red background of my nose, and the moment I had waited for was upon me at last. The zitling had become quite brave in his short stay on my face... and that was to be his downfall. He was overconfident now, secure in his belief that I was incapable of mustering any sort of response at all to his bid for control of my central facial region. But I was ready to smash that myth to pieces, for I was coming to war. I was riding my white horse, and zitling hell was coming with me.
I had put in a lot of time into the preparations for this battle. I had spent too many days of agonized waiting and painful irritation. There was no damn way I was going to fight this battle half-assedly. I wasn't going to pull a Clinton and slap a Clearasil cruise missile on my schnoz, and call it victory... not me, mister. I was wading in there knee-deep, and getting my olfactory justice in a two-fisted blaze of glory. With one finger pressing out from inside my nose, and another one coming at him from each side, this would be a short but brutal confrontation.
I sterilized a pin and made a beachhead at the site of my intended attack, and then I readied my big guns. The initial squeeze breached his defensive perimeter, so I cleaned myself off and readied my troops for the big push. I steadied myself with a deep breath, set my jaw, and silently counted off my attack...
Ready...
Aim...
Fire!
I bit down and squeezed for all I was worth, splattering pus and other bodily fluids across my bathroom mirror. In one swift crush, I knew I had won - my patience had paid off and the zitling was destroyed. I could feel a huge weight off my shoulders, and relief washed over me. My joy was short-lived, however... that little zitling bastard had one final trick up his sleeve.
During the mop-up phase of the operation, I wanted to make sure I got all of the zitling's remnants out of my nose. I wasn't eager to repeat this experience, so I pushed from every angle - including from inside my nostril. However as I pressed outward, something totally unexpected arose from the battle-scarred crater on my beak... it was a hair. A fucking ingrown hair.
But wait, you say, (I sure did) how does an ingrown hair cause all this trouble? Especially when it didn't look at all like a typical hair that's been ingrown for as long as the zitling had been around... it wasn't curled or twisted at all - it was perfectly straight. That's when I noticed the follicular tag was on the outside. It was a hair ingrown from inside my fucking nose, and it was sticking straight out of my flesh... and getting longer with each passing second.
All told, the hair measured about a half-inch, and I was sorely tempted to save it as a monument to my bizarre ordeal... but that's fucking pathetic.
It's almost as pathetic as writing a three-page narrative about the event like it's Catcher in the Rye or Moby Dick or something. And you guys all know I'd never do anything as lame as that.
Still, if it's all the same to you guys... you'd better keep an eye on your noses.
