Every once in a while, especially around springtime, I get that particular brand of stubborn, viscous snot that just doesn’t want to come out when blowing my nose. So I have to reach in there and grab it. It’s the kind that’s like, one giant blob that doesn’t want to come apart. So I keep pulling and pulling, careful not to stretch it too far or too long (lest it detach from my finger and snap back inside my nostril) and finally, it breaks loose, and the huge gelatnous blob skids down my nostril, and I can feel it breaking free and slithering down way the hell up in the deep recesses of my sinus, as if I was yanking out a chunk of my brain.
Most snot accessible by one’s finger only comes from the bottom of your nose, where your finger can reach. So you never really think about what it feels like to pick your nose up where no finger dare tread. But this kind is a single, unified snot that looses all its fury at once. On top of the usual relief of nose-picking is the sublime feeling of gooey release somewhere between one’s nose and eyeball. And then I can breathe again. Man, I love that feeling. I call it a nosegasm.
You don’t know what a REAL nosegasm is until you have surgery in the ol’ honker, and for two WEEKS, your nose is packed off with sponges, and no amount of picking, saline rinse or bargaining will let you breathe through your nose. You don’t know it at the time, but these sponges rival a kitchen sponge in size. You look back on the whole endeavor and wonder just how the hell the surgeon got those things in there.
They’re huge sponges. And they feel huge in your head. And they block off every molecule of oxygen. Until that magic morning comes when you return to the surgeon’s office. They grab a sponge with their forceps and yank it out. You quiver and go “hrb-brrbbb-rrr!” like the bull in that “Got Milk?” ad. Then the doc tells you to sit still and they reach way in and grab the next sponge.
That first sponge was just the foreplay. A mere tease. A slight sample of what’s to come.
The second sponge is way-y-y up there amid your nasal turbinates. When they pull it out, it’s tickling the bottom of your brain and you just go into nosegasmic overload.
And I read this as stubborn, viscious snot. I imagined a snarling, twisted skein of phlegm putting up a fight, much like a small growling Chihuahua fighting off the evil argyle sock that oughtweighs it by about 6 pounds. Then again, from the sounds of it, the snot was putting up one helluva fight since you were trying to evict it without a court order.
He almost had to call the Sheriff.
My personal nosegasm was pepper induced. I had a cold and there was some sort of mucous gremlin way up in there tickling some übersensitive part of my sinuses. My face was contorted and my eyes were watering and I was rendered utterly helpless. This had gone on for hours when a coworker suggested pepper. Pepper makes you sneeze, right?
So I took out the pepper shaker and dispensed some into the palm of my hand and snorted it. I waited. I could feel a sneeze building, those sensitive what’sits being tickled and teased, gasping ever so slightly as the event built up to a glorious climax when it petered out. Was that the nasal equivalent of “wiskey dick”? No matter, I dispensed another handful of pepper and sniffed it as hard as I could. Then I waited. It was torture. My eyelids began to flutter as my eyes teared up. I could feel that tickle way up there. I began to gasp for air in earnest. And then it happened. I sneezed. Three times. In quick succession. The brain shuts down and the body convulses. It feels like an angry house cat is yanked out each nostril by the tail, while your abdominals clinch up and you feet fly in the air from the exertion. Brilliant.
I was left gasping for air, and the entire office stopped dead in its tracks. It was wonderful.
Anyone want a REALLY efficient, split second cure for a bunged up nose?
RAW GRATED HORSERADISH!!!
(No, you DON’T spoon it up your nose, just eat a heaped teaspoonful of the stuff, by the time it’s hit the back of your throat, your nose is REALLY clear and your eyeballs are demanding divorce from your head… BUT you can BREATHE!!)
Oh, yeah. Raw grated horseradish is the stuff! If there isn’t any way to get good Kung Pao Chicken, and there is no more kimchee in the fridge, then horseradish is my choice of clearing agent. Whooooo! Just thinking about it is making my nose run.
Friedo, don’t let the naysayers get you down. The feeling of Supersnot being pulled away from your brain truly is orgasmic.
I find that when I eat wasabi and inhale that I’m left paralyzed by the searing pain in my eyes and sinuses… but I’m able to breathe for about a week afterwards.
Gosh, I hope I didn’t come off as a naysayer—I was just relaying my personal nosegasm experience. The others did sound quite nosegasmish indeed (and a little scary, too).
[QUOTE=js_africanus]
Gosh, I hope I didn’t come off as a naysayer…QUOTE]
Nah. It’s Bosda who is refusing to embrace the joy that is a nosegasm. C’mon, Bosda…share. Tell the darkest secret you have involving nasal fluids. You know you want to…
I like pulling out the massive dry ones, the ones that come out like a giant Crazy Straw. What’s it called when lightning strikes sand and forms a similar shaped structure? Ahhh yes, a FULGURITE. Pulling the big dry ones out is like positioning a D-9 Caterpillar over the sand, attaching a heavy duty chain to the lift bucket and the end of the fulgurite and slowly raising the bucket. Sometimes it even takes both hands. Them’s the keepers.
