I was reading over on jamelah.net today when I was reminded of something my brain had almost managed to completely repress. Jamelah (and if you ever want to read a blog that actually updates on a regular basis, I highly recommend it! I especially enjoy hearing about her Grandma.) - uh, where was I? Oh yes, in her letter to her hypothetical future potential boyfriend, she goes through her list of stellar qualities years of experience has taught her to look for - like not picking your nose and then touching her with your hand* - and that, is what opened up my little memory vault.
*Single fellas, I suggest you read it for something to aspire to. Seriously, the more time that goes on, the more that we see, the more important "please, please just be normal" becomes. I like to think that it's a reachable goal.
My own nose-picking experience is a little different - not potential boyfriend related at all. Just a few weeks ago when I was going out of town for my brother's wedding, I went to get a pedicure, so as not to disgrace my mother with my unkempt feet. For any you out there who have never had a pedicure (do it! trust me!), one of the processes you go through is the tweezing off of cuticles around your nail (at this point in reading, I predict my brother starts to feel disgusted). They soak your feet and lots of warm water with nice little lotions and get them all softened up first, so you really don't feel it at all. Just dead skin coming off to leave the soft, new skin underneath. But every once in a while a person will get a little carried away with the tweezers, and pluck away some of your living, still-connected-to-nerves skin. And that junk hurts. And then it bleeds.
That happened to me on this particular day, except I didn't even feel it. I just happened to look down at my foot and saw that one of my toes was bleeding. And while I was actually very anxious to get out of town and to a wedding, I had come at a slow time of day (because I wasn't at work! because I need to get on the road people!) and the lady that was doing my pedicure was taking her time. Which meant an extra long foot message, so should I really complain? But she was also talking to everyone else in the place, and looking all around and usually more absorbed in her conversation than in my feet (I don't blame her) so she hadn't noticed my bleeding toe. I was considering whether or not to bring it to her attention when she reached for a long stream of toilet paper she had laid across one leg. "Oh good!", I thought, "She's going to stop the blood!" but instead she used that toilet paper to pick her nose. She put it up in there and she dug around, and then she laid it back down and continued going with the foot. She still hadn't noticed and I still hadn't said anything when she started smearing the blood all over my foot. (Kinda gross, sorry.) And finally, she looked down and saw it. And then, can you guess what she did next? That's right. She picked up the same stream of toilet paper, and using the EXACT SAME END she had used for her boogers, she stuck it onto the wound in my toe. And here is where I really should have said something, like, I don't even know what... "Do you have something clean you could use? Like something that wasn't just in your nose a minute ago?" And while I realize this, all I could do while I saw it happening, while I saw that toilet paper move towards my sore, bloody toe, was maybe get a little croak out of my throat, and like Jamelah, have my brain silently scream, "Nooooooooo!!!" When I first saw her lifting it, I assumed she would use the other end, and I was still disturbed. Little did I know that toilet paper conversation was such a high priority for her.
This just isn't a situation that one is prepared with a set response for. I mean, everyone has a few stand-bys for certain circumstances. Say someone asks you out that you don't want to go out with, it's no problem to quickly blurt out, "I'm dating someone", or, "Sorry, I'm a lesbian." But the words "Please don't insert your used tissue into my open flesh" were just not readily available to my tongue. Plus, I didn't want to offend her! That would be rude. (And this is why I have issues. One of them, at least.)
And that's my little trip down memory lane (of a couple of weeks ago) for you! You are welcome. Hopefully sometime soon I'll update more. Can you believe they are keeping me busy at work? Terrible, I know.
1 comment:
Oh. My. God.
That probably would have made me cry.
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