When I was a child we used to talk about the worst form of torture we had ever heard of: the Chinese Water Torture (they mentioned it once on an episode of Wild, Wild West, which I watched religiously every day after school; I was enamored of the sidekick, Artemus Gordon. I always went for the sidekicks; they just seemed like they would be so grateful). Anyway, even though this torture was reputed to be the most heinous torture in all the world, I’ll admit that even after hearing it described so evocatively by none other than Artemus himself it never really sounded all that impressive to me. (Although this could be because I grew up in Phoenix, and therefore found it almost impossible to conceive of anything unpleasant about having some lovely, cool water dripping on your head.) I mean, really, what would be so bad about a little water dripping somewhere, even if that somewhere was your forehead? Surely you could just ignore it and concentrate on something else, like maybe learning enough Chinese to ask your torturers to please knock it off? Then I had kids and discovered that when it comes to the truly most heinous torture in all the world, the Chinese Water Torture isn’t even in the running. The truth is, nothing beats the Childhood Nasal Torture.
This is the torture everyone must endure who is within hearing distance of a child with a runny nose. It is also known as the Snuffleufugus Effect. You hear it in the middle of the night. Sniff. Sniff. You hear it while they’re watching TV. Sniff. Sniff. You hear it at the dinner table, from inside the bathroom, from outside on the swings. Sniff. Sniff. Finally, when you can’t stand to hear it anymore, you explode into a frenzy of “Oh, for the love of God! Please just go and blow your nose!” Which they do. Weakly. Feebly. As if the Kleenex contained some tiny and beautifully precious little city that they must not, under any circumstances, disturb. Pfiffle goes their pathetic little blow, and then maybe 30 seconds pass in peace before it begins again. Sniff. Sniff.
When this trait first emerged in my children I blamed my husband. This, after all, is a man who is so fastidious about his own nose that he refuses to even pick it: if I point out a small extrusion he will flutter at it ineffectively with his knuckles or shake his head about like a horse trying to catch the bit, but under no circumstances will he get in there and get to work. I, on the other hand, am so enamored with picking my nose that I once even let it get in the way of fashion–I removed not one but two nose rings in the early 90s because I didn’t like how they interfered with “the work”.
Of course, it may be my very fascination with all things nasal that has put the fear of nose blowing into my children in the first place. I’m sure that one of their earliest memories (if not the earliest) is of our trusty old big blue bulb syringe swooping down on them in the middle of the night like some kind of alien probe, eagerly sucking up all of that mucus they had worked so hard to create. (Just as I’m also sure that one of my husband’s most disturbing memories is being chased through our house by a demented woman holding a bulb full of snot and shouting “Look at it! Just look at it! Can you believe that all that came from her? I mean, look at it: it’s like half the size of her head!”).
Which leads me to what must really be the most heinous form of torture (for my husband, at least): spousal snot fixation. Sniff. Sniff.