You’re Jack Bauer.
The clock’s clicking and sweat is pouring down your forehead because you know a bomb is about to go off… on your face! You can feel that sneeze tingle up where your brain connects to your eyeball and you know it’s about to boom out in a showery snotstorm the likes of which this dentist’s waiting room has never seen before.
Now it’s time to look left, look right, and get ready to pull off one of three big moves:
1. Slime Explosion. You didn’t make it. Cue the Family Feud buzzer. Nope, after frantically checking your pockets and combing through your glove compartment you eventually came up empty as the sneeze blew out your face. Now your hands are drenched, your lips are sticky, and you’re disgustingly snotty slimeball of humiliation. Time to find a bathroom or get licking. (-5 points)
2. The Understudy. This is where you couldn’t find a tissue but managed to sneeze into a substitute, just in the nick of time. Yes, you scrounged whatever random thing you could find in two seconds and now you’re holding a slippery n’ soggy Burger King placemat, grocery store receipt, or sweatshirt sleeve. (+5 points) (Note: +3 bonus points are awarded for pulling this off while holding a cafeteria tray in both hands.)
3. Mission Accomplished. You made it! You tapped your jeans pockets, fumbled through your fat purse, or ran to the bathroom as that sneeze was ticklingly the top of your nose. You dove for the tissue box and scrunched it to your nose just as the bomb was going off. (+10 points)
Grabbing a tissue at the last second before sneezing is a beautiful moment. You just swooped in when time was counting down and saved the day doing what you do best.
So today we say thank you for dry shirt sleeves. Thank you for dry lips.
And thank you… most of all… for freedom.
AWESOME!
24! Love it.
I had a kid sneeze a snot wad into my face at a > 1 foot range. I was so unhappy. He got super negative points for that amateur move.
This is so great — definitely the upside of keeping multiple tissues boxes all over the place during sneezin’ season. Home decor they’re not, but handy they are.
Oh no! The perils of working with children! No wonder you were sick.
I know it! I never used to be sick, so this year is unreal! I’ve only had to use two sick days, but I’ve gone to school feeling far less than my best too many times to count.
Good thing I love those little germ-monsters. :)
Gross! :)
I’ve got a similar story, which – thankfully – didn’t occur to me, but to my wife. So, the Nutella covered Snuggie monster is a pediatrician, and she had some kid sitting on the doctor’s bench and the crinkly wax paper, and she was working him up, looking in his ears, putting the icy-cold stethescope on his chest.. nervous mother looking on, worried about little Timmy’s aches and pains..
Well, my wife is starting to confirm her diagnosis and has little Timmy say: “AHHHH” as she presses that giant popsicle stick on his tongue and points a light at the back of his throat.. she begins to nod to herself as she sees those white splotches at the very back of his throat – a clear and telltalle sign of Strep Thro….
ACHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
The good doctor, no longer covered in Nutella, is instead showered in an entirely different substance..
She comes home to tell me the story, we wait during the standard 2-3 day incubation period, and BOOYAH!!
Strep Throat..
At this point, I did what all good husbands do, and put myself into “Video Game Quarantine”.. you know – just to keep myself healthy and infection free, right? :)
Ohhhhh man, she definitely wins the unofficial gross-sneeze-in-the-face contest.
See, I bet if you hadn’t shamed her out of wearing her Snuggie to work, she could have somehow hidden behind the collar or magically whipped up the wizard-esque sleeves to block the attack. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.
But regardless, you did the right thing — removed yourself entirely from the diseased area. Good thinking. That’s a given that it was purely for health-related reasons. What guy would VOLUNTARILY isolate himself to play video games for a few days?? Though you strike me as more of a “brought you breakfast in bed with a side of amoxicillin, honey” type guy! ;)
Kids are disease vectors. If I can’t avoid them, I make sure I’ve got plenty of Emergen-C and hand sanitizer.
They really are. That’s extremely good judgement on your part!
hahaha while holding a tray lol.
my mum taught me a trick that you see someone about to sneeze – you say ‘bless you’ before they do & somehow…. they don’t sneeze!..
its really annoying tho when its done to you though, especially when you get that sigh of relief when you do actually get the sneeze out!.
I HATE held in sneezes!. lol
That has totally happened to me! I don’t like to be pre-blessed, because it definitely jinxes it. ;)
I have a great trick for when you need to sneeze and just can’t get your sneeze on… Look up at the sun, or the brightest light you can find. Something about the automatic squint reflex pushes that sneeze on it’s merry way.
http://www.heatersandcoolers.blogspot.com
I LOVE sneezing! It’s one of life’s great pleasures. I have to agree with Simone that there’s nothing worse then having a sneeze retract itself when she’s about to be let out the this wonderful world we live in!! lol.
I just pulled this off perfectly at work. Awesome.
YES, this is truly awesome!! I wish I hadn’t read it while eating, though. :P
Get licking? Ewwwwwwwwwww.
(Sorry, Freddo, I’m gonna take this one.)
“That’s what she said.”
LOL
Anyone seen the movie, “Drop Dead Fred?” Haven’t…should!
The “gladioli” scene alone is about the best ever on the sneeze!
I defend the little children, again, I repeat: it’s usually the big schnozzed stubborn adults who refuse to believe in airbornes, who “can spray for miles and miles!” Kids learn quick…hate medicine, to miss play and/or to be sick!!!
Bless you and gazoontite everyone who’s mindful of other’s, catches their sneeze and cough too, so other’s do not catch the bug from you!
No tissues, use your sleeve or the inside of your shirt please!!!
And Thank you!
This also applies to when you grab a tissue just in the nick of time when you get a nosebleed. You feel the blood trickling down and suddenly everything else is forgotten in the quest for a tissue. The best kind of success is when you grab the tissue just in time to catch the first drop as it falls from your nose.
Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make it when this happened to me in physics class. I dived down to my bag to desperately rummage for my tissue holder, but just as my hand closed in around it, a big drop went splat on my jeans. Ah well, at least it washed out.
OK. well now that you went public with this… I was out for a walk-about yesterday, in sub zero temps. I had a “runny nose”, reached in my pocket- no kleenex! so I’m naturally using the back of my washable hand… saying friendly hello’s to fellow dog walker/owner’s and passerby’s…smiling and chatting about the blue skies and sunshine making up for the freezing cold weather…haha-CHEERS!
I get to the house, go straight to the box of tissue kept by the door, on shelf beneath a “check it out before you leave the house mirror,” and there it is, hand-smeared, runny and bloody nose from how bloudy cold it was. Took 6 tissues today, just in case!
one time i did this – grabbed a tissue at the last second – and ended up inhaling it instead of sneezing. i have never laughed so much in my life!
and once my brother bravely stuck HIS hand over MY mouth as i sneezed, because he’d thought i wasn’t going to cover my own mouth(!). then realised what he’d done and was really grossed out.
i love a good sneeze, i find them really exhilarating. does anyone else do little ‘screams’ or make silly noises when they sneeze?