Are You Afraid of the Booger Man?
Fact: This job comes with many shocking moments.
Fact: These shocking moments re-occur so often that the shock value diminishes. That was certainly the truth when I came across my third student drunk at ten in the morning. It was also the case with my eleventh chronic face piercer as well. The first time I saw them they gave me the shivers, but now not so much. No, now there is no second take with the freaks. That includes nose pickers, until yesterday.
The picker I caught yesterday was two knuckles deep, which again is nothing new. Nor was the fact that he was retrieving large deposits of boogers only to be transferred to his belly for digestion. Then what made this time as shocking as when my booger-eating-sighting cherry was popped?
It was the eye contact. Of course this wasn’t my first “our eyes met from across the room” moment with a nose gold digger. Usually, they get caught, and they retract the finger with a bit of shame, and we move on. This time, though, our eyes locked, and he didn’t flinch at all. He was just powering through until he struck brain. It made me so uncomfortable that I was the one who looked away.
And we all know what comes after the initial sighting of something so shocking and disturbing that you have to look away. You have to take a second look. Car wrecks, someone streaking, nose picking—all get an additional glance.
When I do take another gander, nothing has changed. I mean nothing. He’s still staring at me! Had he been staring at me this whole time? Did our eyes just happen to meet again for a second time? I didn’t know! I wasn’t looking, remember?
By the looks of things he had been caught in a trance this entire time. Perhaps his finger stumbled upon a secret pressure point that sent his mind through a portal through time and space while his body remained on auto-pilot, like the plot to some Charlie Kaufman film.
All I know is that the human nose has the capacity to hold an obscene (and I mean obscene) amount of boogers.
Fact: These shocking moments re-occur so often that the shock value diminishes. That was certainly the truth when I came across my third student drunk at ten in the morning. It was also the case with my eleventh chronic face piercer as well. The first time I saw them they gave me the shivers, but now not so much. No, now there is no second take with the freaks. That includes nose pickers, until yesterday.
The picker I caught yesterday was two knuckles deep, which again is nothing new. Nor was the fact that he was retrieving large deposits of boogers only to be transferred to his belly for digestion. Then what made this time as shocking as when my booger-eating-sighting cherry was popped?
It was the eye contact. Of course this wasn’t my first “our eyes met from across the room” moment with a nose gold digger. Usually, they get caught, and they retract the finger with a bit of shame, and we move on. This time, though, our eyes locked, and he didn’t flinch at all. He was just powering through until he struck brain. It made me so uncomfortable that I was the one who looked away.
And we all know what comes after the initial sighting of something so shocking and disturbing that you have to look away. You have to take a second look. Car wrecks, someone streaking, nose picking—all get an additional glance.
When I do take another gander, nothing has changed. I mean nothing. He’s still staring at me! Had he been staring at me this whole time? Did our eyes just happen to meet again for a second time? I didn’t know! I wasn’t looking, remember?
By the looks of things he had been caught in a trance this entire time. Perhaps his finger stumbled upon a secret pressure point that sent his mind through a portal through time and space while his body remained on auto-pilot, like the plot to some Charlie Kaufman film.
All I know is that the human nose has the capacity to hold an obscene (and I mean obscene) amount of boogers.