Thursday, February 26, 2009

Droplet infection

The blog is ill-tended this week as I have a particularly virulent cold. It is hard enough to draw when you are wracked by coughs, let alone string a sentence together. I am on the mend now I think but it may be too late for my body, which is wan and weak. I intend to travel into the city this afternoon and one whiff of diesel may end my days.

The best cold I ever had was when I got a sinus infection. Once the malaise had passed, I would blow my nose and about two minutes later warm, thin, bright custard yellow goo would gush forth from my nostrils and have to be staunched mid-flow. Yes ladies and gentlemen, it was my brains leaking out which is why I am not allowed to marry, vote or drive a car any more.

This particular malady occurred after I spent two weeks in Brooklyn, which says plenty about the fine air quality in that neck of the woods.

What's the worst thing that's ever come out of your nose?

22 comments:

T S R Taylor said...

Vomit. On a train. In front of a small child. Good times.

Unknown said...

Oh, I can so win this one.

I had a horrendous sinus infection last year and within a ten minute period blew about a cup full of thick brown gunk out of my nose, twice. It's even funnier when you realise that human sinuses have about the capacity of a shot glass.

Roman said...

I came down with a sinus infection on a trip to New Mexico as a teenager. We were hiking and camping in the backcountry, and I wasn't accustomed to the dry mountain air. After returning home and taking my course of antibiotics (which had the side effect of, shall we say, loosening certain digestive functions - let's leave it at that), my sinuses drained all at once. I managed to expel long ropey gobs of pasty yellow mucus all in one afternoon. This was quite fun, as I was a teenager in high school and there were, you know, girls around.

Bri said...

I lose at this one, since it doesn't technically come out my nose. See, my sinuses cruel and somehow I end up having to cough out most of what's in them. Last year I spent about 3 minutes straight clearing my throat until a two-thumb-sized hunk of mucus finally fell out my mouth.

Perhaps that was a story best left untold...

John A said...

These war stories are minstrel music for modern times.

No more sick though, it's a nasty business when that happens.

Unknown said...

Another smaller nose with tiny bird-like eyes and a thin determined mouth. After originally looking like it had some degree of alterior motive it made eye contact with and startled, with a surprisingly high pitched squeal it turned on its non-visible heels and disapeared back into my nostrils where it writhes and plans to this day.

I live in constant fear of this sinister petite nose and the thought that one day he may rise against me.

Jon said...

An alarming quantity of inexplicably bright orange material, intermittently, for at least a day and a half.

Sarah said...

Sometimes I blow my nose and metal comes out.

This really shouldn't be surprising, as I have a septum retainer in, but I think most people find it gross when I'm left with a snot-covered metal object in my tissue. And then I put it back in.

TomSmizzle said...

oh yeah, definitely vomit. pretty much the worst experience ever, puking through your nose.
nasty stuff.

Lucy said...

If I go to the opticians, they insist on dying my eyes with bright orange goo so they can watch my sight receeding. If I happen to go to the opticians when I have a cold, not only do I have stinging, runny, bloodshot orange eyes at the end of it but I also have an uncontrollable orange nose. Luminous snot is really, really hard to explain in finance meetings :(

Marc Arsenault said...

I'd say the time I passed a hunk of bread through a nostril (at least I think it was bread) would be way up there. It was a good sized piece, like a big marble. It really freaked me out.

My Captcha is 'bultsist'

Nat said...

Oh, you really don't want to know the answer to that.

Lislestein said...

A bead from a necklace that I had shoved up a nostril as a young child.

Anonymous said...

Llamas.

Sam G said...

Taco sauce, in second grade.

Ryan V said...

I was pretty young, and maybe my imagination was running away with me, but it sure looked like a vein.

Mizufae said...

Chocolate milk, mixed with blood! 4th grade. We called it "snarfing."

JessX said...

chicken and wild rice soup. chicken soup maybe good for you when you are sick. but when you are sick and sneezing take care....those piece of rice are painful and feel like they are stuck somewhere in sinus cavity for quite awhile.

John A said...

In tribute to the brave souls in these comments, I utilised the traditional "neti pot" this morning and poured nearly half a litre of warm salt water through my sinuses. In the absense of the actual jug in question, I used the pot they give you to fill up your steam iron.

I can only describe it as the most bracing experience of the last week.

Brendan said...

Once upon a winter drill when I was a reservist, my group was trying to stay warm in a shed converted to an office using a kerosene space heater. However, what we believed was kerosene was in fact JP8, a sort of jet fuel/diesel hybrid. The smoke filled the office at a stunning rate of speed, and for the next 48 hours I was blowing dark gray debris from my nose.

Amanda C. Davis said...

Spaghetti-Os.

Dakao said...

Sinus infections seem to be the rule here, so who am I to buck the trend?

Wrinkled, olive-complexioned gobs the size and firmness of dried apricots. I think they were bacterial positive castings of my sinuses.

Every time one made a successful bid for freedom, I thought my nose had been turned inside out and ransacked like a purse in a back alley mugging.