#982 Picking your nose

Neil Pasricha
Get on up

Let’s face it, there’s a lot going on in the nose area:

1. Breathing: You might have figured it out by now, but breathing is pretty high up there on the Reasons Your Nose Exists list, together with smelling stuff and holding up your glasses. Yes, your nostrils provide safe transport for air to keep rushing buckets of oxygen to the eternal flame that is your lungs. The job’s so important they installed a backup nostril for cold and allergy season, and even hooked all the breathing plumbing up to your mouth too, so you’re double backed up.
2. Nose Hairs: It’s like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in your nose, except instead of ice crystals shooting jaggedly in all directions, nose hairs. Think of nose hairs as the first defense against all the nasty dirt, dust, and bugs flying around from entering your respiratory system. Yes, these are the Nose Hair Knights guarding the Nasal Passage Drawbridge to the Castle of Your Lungs.
3. Nasal Mucus: The nasal mucus is the second line of defense after your nose hairs. If a piece of flying dirt manages to deke out your nosehairs, there’s a decent chance it won’t get past The Slime in your nose. Nasal mucus, or The Slime, traps and unceremoniously drowns intruders to your body. This really exhausts nasal mucus, so when it gets loaded up with gunk it usually dries into crispy boogers. And this all happens without you even having to lift a finger. Folks, it may be disgusting, but this is The Magic of Your Body.

Anyway, picking these dried crispies out of your nose is a very natural thing. Plus, it clears up your airways, shows the airborne particulate who’s boss, and feels like a million bucks.

Learning early

Just pop your finger right on up there, making sure to aim your eyes up to the left and curl your tongue onto your upper lip like you’re deep in thought, and then swivel and curl your finger in a variety of directions to pull it out. Don’t be embarrassed. We are pro bringing nose-picking out of the closet here. It is a natural thing that we were born to do. Just look at babies with their fingers wedged right up there with no shame for hours on end. It’s like I always say: We can learn much from the baby.

If you’re a little put off, think of picking your nose like cleaning out the hair trap in your shower. Sure, it’s gross and disgusting, sure, you should probably wash your hands afterwards, and sure, you should do it before company comes over. But let’s make one thing clear: that trap serves a valuable purpose by preventing hair from clogging up your pipes and getting your system all gummed up. Same thing with your nose. It provides a valuable purpose, and you should let it keep doing what it’s doing by giving it a little swirl every now and then, tidy things up a bit, reboot the system, you know. It’s not nose-picking so much as nose-maintenance. Remember that.

Sets the pick

If you’re on my side here and you believe in the wonder of nose picking to help get the job done, then stand up and proudly declare yourself a rhinotillexomaniac. I just learned that rhino means nose, tillex means pick at, and mania means obsessed with. Maybe even try it on a business card to sound like you’re a lofty political official of a tiny, far-away land. “Vice President of Rhinotillexomania.”

Last thing: According to an anonymous survey by the University of Wisconsin 91% of adults say they pick their nose but only 49% believe it to be a common habit. Let’s hold hands here today and proudly shatter that misconception. Yes, you pick your nose. And yes…everyone else does, too.

AWESOME!

God save the pick

81 thoughts to “#982 Picking your nose”

  1. I was picking the hell out of my nose as I clicked on the link to your blog and found this entry, in fact! What a wonderful validation!

  2. See this is what I’ve been trying to tell my friend. She says getting anal sex is normal, I say picking my nose is normal.

    We both think what the other does is gross.

    1. Seresecros, I struggled and I failed…the worst part is when you end up getting a bloody nose because of it. That is so far from awesome it’s almost awesome again

  9. Hahaha, this cracks me up. My 4 y.o. is now picking his nose all the time. I’m finding boogers everywhere. Plus I find it hysterical when I see other people doing it in their cars. Caught ya!

  11. I guarantee you that Moses was a picker. All that dry air wandering around the desert….I’m sure he had to clean house once in a while.

    1. LOL, ^5 for George Costanza reference from Seinfeld

      @ topic: “birthdays are like boogers…the more you have the harder it is to breathe”

  12. If picking your nose and eating it was not ok your nose would be down near your bum, coz we all know we are not supposed to eat what comes out of there

    :-)

  13. I am proudly a Rhinotillexomaniac! It started as a way to discourage my “photo happy” friends from taking pics of me. Now I hardly make it into a photo without picking my nose, or someone elses.

    Bogey’s at 12 o’clock! pick away!
    nose pickers UNITE!!!!
    suzy

  16. Mildly off topic, but when tackling a mighty blockage, I like to use all time and resources available to me. Mid-snicker, I like to block the other nostril with a knuckle, and catch that steadfast intruder off guard.

    I bet you didn’t see that coming, mild inconvenience.

  18. Another method to unblock your nose, if you have a really huge blob refusing to come out, is the “Rocket Launch”:
    1) Cover up one nostril and close your mouth
    2) Blow. Hard. Until it pops out

    Simple! And it works, now you will have full use of both your nostrils once again.

  20. Please get a tissue to do it. That is beyond gross. That is why I hate shaking hands with anyone. We should all just bow.

  22. Picking your nose is like masturbation. Sure, you may enjoy it, but no one wants to see you doing it.

  24. an extract from Sylvia Plath’s journals about the “illict sensuous delight” of picking one’s nose:

    “I always have, ever since I was a child. There are so many subtle variations of sensation. A delicate, pointed-nailed fifth finger can catch under dry scabs and flakes of mucous in the nostril and draw them out to be looked at, crumbled between fingers, and flicked to the floor in minute crusts. Or a heavier, determined forefinger can reach up and smear down-and-out the soft, resilient, elastic greenish-yellow smallish blobs of mucous, roll them round and jellylike between thumb and forefinger, and spread them on the undersurface of a desk or chair where they will harden into organic crusts. How many desks and chairs have I thus secretively befouled since childhood? Or sometimes there will be blood mingled with the mucous: in dry brown scabs, or bright sudden wet red on the finger that scraped too rudely the nasal membranes. God, what sexual satisfaction!”

  25. OH EM GEE iv been dying to right about how much picking your nose rocks but im too afraid to be judged lol. getting that irritating booger is the best feeling, thank you for putting it out there lol

  27. Everyone picks their nose, but how many people eat their boogers? Come on, tell the truth. I eat the shit out of mine.

    2. I have a theory that eating boogers immunizes my body against germs. By eating small amts of germs the body gets used to dealing with them regularly. I hardly ever get sick!!!

  28. Yay! Everyone does it! If they say they don’t they’re lying! It is so satisfying to dig for gold and get that sucker out. heehee

  31. I stopped picking my nose for two weeks or so (reason: I figure picking my crane all the time will make it larger much faster) and it felt horrible. Could hardly breathe through them nostrils. Nowadays I avoid it for most part but do the essential picking now and then.

    Agree with the awesomeness though.

  33. Ugh…this is a disgusting conversation. I would never eat the boogers that come out of my nose. That’s what the floor is for.

  34. Not to be a party pooper, but skin is the 1st Line of Defense, hehe sorry just learned that in LE.

  35. Ha, awesome blog! When my brother’s sick he stick like half of his finger up there!

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  43. Read a book on Chinese customs not long ago,and it explained that the custom in China is to pick your nose in public.Didn’t say what they do with the bugger though.

    1. I am Chinese from HongKong and have been living there since I was born — and have never heard of that LOL.

      Yet, some mainland Chinese people do come to Hong Kong and shit on the floor (Children usually) in Shopping Malls and Hong Kong Disneyland —Digusting!

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  50. Hehe, a bit of relief from the long project I’m working on. Funny pictures, by the way. I like how all these awesome things are always frank and truthful…even when they’re kinda gross, they all express the ways of human nature. :D:D:D

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