Today we're going to discuss Fun With Mucus and Nocturnal Animals. If you're squeamish, please continue reading. You know you want to. While you're at it, have someone take a picture of your face while you're reading and send it to me. I love making people happy.
Every morning I knowingly send my four offspring to seething Petri dishes full of bacteria, otherwise known as school, where they exchange, trade and have recess with deadly strains of the cold and flu virus.
It was only a matter of time until they engaged in biological warfare with my aged and compromised immune system.
I never stood a chance.
Last night, after ingesting near-lethal doses of Nyquil, I tried to sleep.
Each time I lay horizontally, both nasal passages became hot rivers of slime, draining down my face and pooling on my pillow.
You know what happens next, right? C'mon. You've all done it at some point in your life.
You wad up little pieces of tissue and plug the offending holes to staunch the flow of snot so you can sleep.
Sure, you're going to be sleeping by breathing through your mouth, but you were going to do that anyway.
It's not like you were able to use your nose as God intended tonight. Nasty little invasions of infection have made that impossible, so you go to plan B.
Plan B means you have lost all dignity, and if you have a sleeping companion you are comfortable with, wads of tissue stuffed up your nose is your only option.
So first I blew, then I stuffed and lay down.
At first, all was well. The Nyquil was doing its job of making me sleepy, and despite the Sahara desert sand that had taken up residence in my mouth, I slept.
It turned out that my sleeping companions were not as non-judgmental as I had previously thought, and objected to the wads of white tissue stuffed up my nose. I know this because they kept removing them during the night and racing off with them. At first I wasn't aware of what was happening, what with the Nyquil buzz I had going.
I sleep with three males and one female. One of the males is my husband. The other two are furry and four-footed.
Sleeping with just my husband is my intention; however, during the night the cats join us. They are the ones that didn't like the two improvised dams I'd created to stop the snot flow.
I'm used to them sleeping on me, so their weight doesn't register and doesn't wake me up. When they pawed the wads from my nose, the lava flow began again in earnest. I restuffed. Four-footed beasties returned, pawed them loose and raced off with them. I restuffed. I tried to bat them away when I felt them clawing at my face, but they always managed to yank out my tissue before I could stop them and jump off the bed before I could grab them back.
In the morning I discovered the disgusting wads of tissue all over the floor around my bed.
It appears they were using them as toys during the night. I even found one downstairs. Heaven knows where I'll find the rest of them.
So let this be a lesson to all you faucet noses out there:
Mucus and felines do not good bedfellows make, unless you like waking up to ...
I'd so like to come up with a funny ending, but it's snot coming to me.
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