I spent the last workday of 2005 knee-deep in tissues soaked in my own snot. Some of my next-cube neighbors are either sick or well on their way. I guess I'm just another domino in the chain. I can't smell a thing which is probably for the better considering what this ailment has done to my gastrointestinal system. On every fifth Kleenex I had to excuse myself to the bathroom because I started my nose bleeding again. Once when I returned to the tiki cube I noticed a drop of dried blood on the tip of my nose. I licked my thumb and rubbed my alae nasi trying to get the blood off. When saliva didn't work, I came up with the ingenious idea of using Purell instead. Not smart. There is a reason they call this stuff hand sanitizer and not nose sanitizer. My nose was chaffed from multiple blowings and the alcohol in the Purell stung like hell. It was like dousing your face with cologne right after shaving, only the burning sensation is concentrated on the sensitive tip of your nose. Snorting sulfuric acid would probably not have burned half as much as this did.
To make matters worse I had a disengaged scab in my nose that wouldn't come out no matter how hard I blew. To my coworkers I must have sounded like the big bad wolf only congested. I used a Kleenex and tried to discreetly pull out the coagulated bloodsnot. It was still putting up a fight so I yanked it. Turns out it was attached to one my nose hairs. This hurt so bad my eyes started to tear up. It was then that I began to wonder why nasal grooming has to be such a painful endeavor. If in my old age my nostrils become hirsute, I think I will just settle for having an unkempt schnoz.
On a lighter note I treated myself to lunch today at Ledo's Pizza. I ordered the Buffalo chicken sandwich which was dumb. I had ordered this once before and didn't particularly care for it. Why I thought it would taste better this time I don't know. It didn't. The sauce tasted like it was made with a bit of ranch dressing, some tobasco and fourteen cups of salt. Still I ate this in record time.
Please note that when I eat lunch out I am not only trying to escape work, I am trying to escape humanity. If the restaurant is basically empty, kindly do not choose the booth adjacent to mine when making your seat selection. I do not care to listen to your conversation anymore than you care to watch me pull bloody boogers out of my nose. Today a family of four (mom, dad and two twenty-something sons) just had to sit as close to me as possible. The son facing me was a dead ringer for Shoney's big boy. I don't just mean in girth. I mean he had the look right down to the swoopy hairdo. It wouldn't surprise me if he owned a red and white checked apron.
The family was well behaved until the song Drift Away started playing. Actually they were still tolerable when the song started playing. It was when it reached the chorus that they got on my nerves. At that point, father and both sons began singing in three-part atonal unison:
Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.
Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.
Skinny brother was going for a third refrain on this line when thankfully he was cut short by the lead singer singing the correct lyrics. Dad made some reference to how this song would be a good one to sing Karaoke. Yuck. Their conversation died down and I mistakenly thought I was through having to hear them sing. No such luck. When the chorus repeated so did they. It sounded like bellowing cats. The next song was by INXS. Thankfully the tone-deaf family didn't know the words and went back to their meat lover's pizza.
As for me, I took a cup o' kindness yet, for Auld Lang Syne
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