Both men liked to tease and joke once they came out of their shells, so him saying that about a booger—which for the record didn’t exist, I’d like to add—was pretty much par for the course. It’d also been effective in distracting me from my nervousness at what I was about to walk into, so I guess I’d thank him when I got back out.
And then a thought hit me—what if there was a booger and I just hadn’t been able to find it? What if it was on the tip of my nose? Or my cheek?
Discreetly wiping both areas as I walked up to the door where the meeting was being held, the same one that I’d had a brief talk with the principal about the job in two days ago, I checked my hand and sighed with relief.
I was just reaching out for the handle when another possibility hit me. No one is immune to the booger that gets caught in their nostril, slightly visible to everyone else but unknown to them. We’ve all been there. You go to the bathroom, wash your hands, look up, and there’s the little lurker staring at everyone.
What if it was a peek-a-boo booger? The kind that when you breathe in disappears up, then pops back down when you exhale? And why was I giving so much time and thought to the types of boogers it was possible to suffer from?
Fuck it, I was going to have to brave it, even if it meant a lurker was popping out to say cuckoo every time I exhaled.
Taking a deep breath in—hidey bogey time—I knocked and opened the door, smiling at everyone as I walked in.
After the introductions, I was given a cup of coffee and took my seat while everyone got situated and comfortable. It wasn’t awkward, they were all consulting some notes in front of them, and it gave me a moment to clear my mind of all of the jumbling thoughts so that they didn’t come pouring out in a way that would make me seem like a crazy lady when I answered a question.
And then the worst thing that could happen happened, making my nerves explode and my stomach tip.
A high pitched but very audible, whistling noise broke the silence as I inhaled, and everyone looked up and around the room at each other. Every time I inhaled, the fucking whistle would follow to the point I was trying to breathe through my mouth as much as I could.
It wasn’t a peeky bogey, it was a whistling one. It was pretty much playing a rock ballad to the room.
I wasn’t going to thank Carter when I got out, I was going to punch him in the balls for jinxing me. The big fucking rat bastard.
Two hours later…
I’d been in quite a few uncomfortable situations in my relatively short life.
There was the time I got my period at school when I was wearing white shorts and caught it before it could go to hell in a Carrie basket. I still had a small mark on the very crotch of them for the rest of the day, but it could have been way worse.
Then there was the time I ran into the glass door of our cafeteria, thinking they were open. Ironically, I’d been checking out a guy in the reflection of them who was watching my ass as I ran, and I’d ended up getting a concussion in front of most of the school.
There was also the time I shut the door of a cab with my long skirt stuck in it. I’d been heading to meet my mom at a gorgeous boujie café in downtown New York and had gotten distracted by how beautiful the buildings were, all decorated for Easter. The skirt had one of those elasticated waistbands, and I’d figured if I was going to consume a lot of cake, cookies, and sweet stuff, it would stretch nicely, and I’d avoid a muffin type overhang.
Sadly, I never found out if that was the case because the taxi drove off, I got pulled off balance and onto my hands and knees on the road. I’d been dragged fifteen feet down the road as the skirt made its way down my legs and off into the wide-open world.
I’d ended up spending the day in the ER getting cuts and scrapes cleaned out and bandaged up. Sadly, the story also made it into the news thanks to passersby and their fucking, fucking cell phones.
I’d also sneezed while I was having a cavity filled. Doesn’t sound too bad? Think about it—the dentist’s face was right in front of my mouth while he filled in the cavity. He was drilling away when one of those sneezes that totally takes you by surprise came flying out of me. It was so bad I never went back to him.