The Next Big Thing

I just saw an ad on TV for a ‘Blow Dry Bar’. At first I thought it was some sort of sick joke, then I thought it was an actual sidle-up-to-the-bar-and-order-a-whiskey-and-while-you’re-at-it-blow-dry-my-hair kind of place, because the commercial showed all these women getting their hair poofed out by other women holding industrial strength blow dryers. My brain began to throb in confusion. Usually it only throbs when I have to find a word that rhymes with ‘titillate’.

When the commercial was over, my initial reaction was to run to my PC and Google ‘blow dry bar’. I just couldn’t wrap my head around a saloon/salon type of place. What if the client gets sloshed and wobbles in her chair? Her hairdo would end up looking like a relief map of North America. Instead, I called my sister Marie, who’s been a cosmetologist all her life. Seriously. She came out of the womb with a pair of scissors and a brush. Poor mom. Actually, when she told me for the first time that she was a cosmetologist, I asked her if she had any idea what the rings of Saturn were made of. Imagine my shock when she said those type of people were called cosmologists. Imagine someone trying to give Jupiter a crew cut. Anyway, I asked my sis what the heck a ‘blow dry bar’ was, and she told me it is a place where women go to get their hair washed and then blow dried. That’s it. No margaritas, no banana schnapps, no cute little umbrellas. Can you believe it?  I’ve got pretty long hair, so I could actually be driving down the street and say to myself “Self, I think I’m going to let someone else wash my hair today, and while she’s at it, she can give me a Dee Snider Twisted Sister look.”

Well, I took my original reaction, clothed it in curiosity, went to the internet and found a place called Drybar. It’s motto is “No cuts. No color. Just blowouts.” I actually had the guts to take a virtual tour of the place, but I won’t share the details. It’s just too hideous to explain. And this is coming from the guy who wrote the most graphic horror novel (shameless plug: OOBERS: Kalamazoo, folks) in the history of literature. The most frightening thing in the website is that they charge ‘ONLY’ $40. Holy Moley to the tenth power! I could think of about five thousand different ways to spend $40 on something other than a wash and dry.

You know, in today’s world if you want to make a splash, if you want to get noticed, if you want to be filthy rich (at least until the IRS gets hold of you), you have to come up with some idea that’s unique, something no one’s ever done before. That’s hard to do, because pretty much everything’s been tried already. So after I had my little freakout over the whole blow dry bar thing, I took a step back and thought about it. I really had to give them credit for pulling it off. Hey, there are plenty of people out there with nothing better to do than spend $40 on a hair wash and blow dry. That means they might be just as willing to spend their moolah on some other outlandish thing. That’s when the gears started spinning in my head. If you don’t know me by now, I’ll give you a heads up. When the gears start spinning in my head, it’s time to sprint for the hills. Seriously.

After a few seconds of spinning (my brain spins pretty fast) I came up with an idea. Actually, a few of them. Now, before I disclose these unique and fabulous schemes, I’m bound by the gypsy copyright laws to inform you I’ve already mailed these ideas to myself. If I find out someone’s stolen one of my babies, I’ll take my envelope to the nearest judge, rip it open and hope I remembered to put a date on the paper. So, you’ve been warned. How about this for brainstorming? I’m going to open a booger retrieval service. Yep. Boogers. Snot. Nose Candy. Snot Rockets. Goobers. Don’t get all spiritual on me. You know you get ’em. All the time. And they always make their appearance at the most inappropriate time. Like when you’re on a date, or at church, or in the supermarket, or in the middle of a big presentation, or when the preacher comes to visit, and especially when you’re in traffic. Well, you can just call . . . I think I’ll name it the “Boogie Noogie Bugle Boys Excavation Service.” I know, it’s a snoot-full, but it’s catchy and even has its own song that’s guaranteed to get your toes tapping and stick in your brain. You don’t come to us. Just call and we’ll go to where you are and pick out that offending boogie. The best part is that it only costs $5 per nugget. That’s a miniscule price to pay for saving your reputation.

Once that business gets off the ground, I’m going to start a new business venture. Dingleberry removal. Visualize it. Now try to get that visual out of your head. See? Pure genius!

In Defense of Boogers

I think it’s about time we have an honest discussion about one of the most taboo subjects in the history of civilization. I’m talking about boogers. Snot rockets. Nuggets. Roly-Polies. Nose candy. Crusty cake. I promise you, dear reader, that there are a number of folks stabbing their keyboards this very moment trying to get away from this article. That’s fine. That means there’s more information for the rest of us to digest.

‘Booger’ is just a fancy way of referring to dried nasal mucus. Let me tell you how a booger is born. Throughout our day we breathe in copious amounts of tiny dust particles that get trapped by mucus-covered nasal hairs called cilia. A good portion of these dust particles happen to host a wide variety of pollen, bacteria and other such microscopic matter such as dried urine, floating feces and dead skin cells from about every part of both human and animal bodies. There’s no need to freak out and plug your nose. If you breathe through your mouth you actually inhale 1000% more of the particles mentioned above. In this sense, mouth breathers really are stupid. Be healthy and keep your trap shut.

The reason why some boogers are sticky and slimy while others are crusty and slightly salty is quite simple. As we breathe through our nose (I would use the word ‘nasal cavity’, but that sounds creepy and painful), the mucus dries out and begins to petrify the material that at one time was minding its own business, happily floating in the air. If you happen to be prospecting for gold and run across a booger, you’ll be able to tell in an instant what its consistency is. Personally, I prefer dry over wet. They flick farther.

But all this talk about boogers would be incomplete without the controversial discussion on whether they can be consumed. I’m sure you’ve seen a little child sitting in church or in the bleachers during a soccer game or just watching TV, and they bury half of their forefinger up their nose, retrieve a big honker and then casually pop it in their mouth. If boogers were deadly, society would have never made it past the Mesopotamian era. If boogers killed, you wouldn’t be reading this and I wouldn’t have written it. You would like the world to believe boogers have never passed your lips, but we all know different, don’t we? That’s alright. We’ll just call it our dirty little secret, my holy roller friend. Stop gagging. You’re making it difficult to continue reading.

Look, it’s a known fact that ingested boogers can actually boost the immune system and prolong life. You actually can’t help but suck a few loosy-juicies into your stomach. The average human swallows about a quart of mucus a day. In fact, your sinuses produce about 2 liters of mucous a day. Think about that next the time you get a 2 liter bottle of your favorite beverage. It’s completely natural. When your allergies act up or you get a full-fledged cold, you can really become a snot factory. During these times you don’t always have a tissue handy, so you have no choice but to suck it up. No one’s judging you. He who is without mucus may cast the first booger. Wait a minute. Without mucus, he wouldn’t have a booger. Never mind. I say we should embrace our boogers, we should love them for what they do, we should include them in our food like croutons or tofu. If you really love someone, you’ll eat their booger. I know you’ve thought about it late at night when no one else is around. I mean, we share pretty much every other bodily fluid, don’t we? Why not the occasional boogie? Ok. Here’s a test question: Would you eat your best friend’s juicy, drippy booger for one million tax free dollars? Move over; I’m salivating just thinking about the first thing I’d buy with the money: mouthwash.

If you think boogers aren’t very sophisticated, you’d be wrong. The scientific term for enthusiastically picking one’s booger is Rhinotillexomania. If boogers were the trailer trash of body parts, they certainly wouldn’t have a name like that, now would they?  Actually, my dog doesn’t care one whit about names or phobias or taboos. She’ll gobble a goober in a heartbeat and not think twice about it. She’s actually quite handy to have around if I’m too engrossed to get up, retrieve a hankie or tissue and tackle the mucus mountain myself. She thinks they’re treats. The cat is too finicky for such cuisine, though. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.

Ok, even I have my limits. It’s not easy typing while retching. I just had to stand up for those little guys, those poor outcasts of anatomy, those misfits of modern conversation. I don’t think they deserve to be shunned. In fact, I’ve just fired off an impassioned letter to the White House asking the President to designate one day in August as National Booger Day. Why August? It’s the most neglected month of the year when it comes to holidays. What better place to venerate nose nuggets? I mean, it’snot rocket science.