There's...um...something by your nose....

We’ve all been there. Your co-worker is chatting away at the lunch table/conference room table/cubicle, expounding on (you fill in the blank here), but you’re having trouble listening, because there is a booger the size of a GRAPEFRUIT hovering at the exit of her nostril, and you don’t know how to tell her! It’s awkward! You feel uncomfortable saying something, but you know you might feel worse later if you don’t say something and she realizes that you saw it and said nothing. What’s worse?

What is the hang up about this? We don’t say anything out of fear, right? Fear of boogers?! Where’s the rationality in that?! God forbid we should save this person from public humiliation by simply stating the fact that there’s a dried up piece of nose tinsel hanging up after the holiday. Maybe it matters if it’s a man or a woman or whether or not you like or respect the person. I have to admit, that there have been times when I’ve thought to myself, “You know what? You’re a jerk. I hope you go around like that all day so that you can add “ICK!” to the banner you wear that says, “I’m a jerk!”

Say you decide to say something. What do you say? The few times I have mentioned something, I’ve said, “There’s something by your nose there,” accompanied by a light flicking motion with my hand, as if a breeze would brush it off (I’m trying to minimize the embarrassment.) If they find the booger, they might be a little embarrassed, but they’d be less embarrassed than if I’d said, “There’s a booger on your lip.”

I don’t care at all about saying this to my students; “You need to get a tissue.” This often results in, “No, I’m okay.” And my, “Uh…No. You’re NOT. I can see gross stuff coming out of your nose right now. Go get a Kleenex.” I guess there’s a power differential that has to come into play in making your decision to say something or not. I’m quite sure I would never be able to tell my boss if he had a cling-on hanging out his nose. I’d rather he look in the bathroom mirror and confidently assume that it just got there.

Okay, enough booger talk. Just one more thing…. You know those ads that pop up on the side window when you search for something? The ones that lead you to twelve other destinations related to your topic? Well I have to tell you that when I looked up booger in the thesaurus (it wasn’t there!) I just for grins looked over there and saw “Booger Barter.” Who knew there was a market for boogers out there?!