Gak!

I know I just did a WTF post, but it seems like lately the world is just full of WTFs.

The other day, I read an article about the world's record holder for the longest fingernails. Before she was in a car crash this past February (which apparently broke some of her nails), each nail was almost 3 feet long. The 68-year-old great-grandmother had been growing them for thirty years.

The first thought that went through my mind when I saw her picture was "GAH! MY EYES! MY EYES!"

The second was, "How in the heck did she drive a car like that? It's a wonder she didn't have LOTS of accidents!"

Well, the article didn't actually say if she was driving or not, so I guess maybe we could infer that she was a passenger in the vehicle.

And of course---being me---the next question I had was, "How in the world did she wipe her own ass?"

Even with one of those long wipey-stick things you can get from a medical supply store, her nails would still get in the way, and unless she had 5-foot-long arms, I can't see how she could maneuver it.

So did she have someone wipe her butt for her like Henry VIII or did she just sit in her own fug all the time?

Was the wiper a relative? A paid companion? How much would a professional butt-wiper make these days, considering that medical insurance or medicare prolly wouldn't cover a home health-aide worker for someone who is willfully disabled?

How did she bathe? Dress? Or even sleep, for Pete's sakes? Did she hang off the rafters like a bat at night? Is she married? Could you imagine crawling into bed with those at the end of the day?

Since the article said she had been growing her nails for 30 years, and they were almost 3-feet long each, I did an off-the-cuff calculation of nail growth of around 12 inches every 10 years. So at age 48, her nails would have been a foot long (Can you smell a Mythbusters experiment coming on?).

On Sunday, I decided to try it out. Just for a little while to see what it would be like. We had company coming Monday for a cookout, and I needed to get cracking with the cleaning.

But first I needed to gather some information.

Honey, I asked. If I broke both my arms, would you be willing to wipe my butt for me for 6 weeks or so?

"I don't see how I'd have much of a choice".

That's my man. He's put up with me, my kids, miscellaneous spot-welding in the middle of the night, my nose-hose and other downright annoying habits for the last 17 years.

What if I was uh---disabled on purpose? Would you wipe my butt for twenty or thirty years?

He gave me the hairy eyeball. "Only if you were getting a million dollars annually and I got special seats at the Superbowl every year."

Well yeah, I get it. True love only goes so far. I wouldn't wipe HIS butt for 30 years either.

So I duct-taped wooden skewers to my fingers. I felt like Attila Scissorhands. It lasted about 3 hours.

Could I wash dishes? Not really. I had to "palm" the glasses, turn them over, and try to grip them from the bottom to put them in the washer. Then I had to kind of grab the scrub brush in the joint between my thumb and first finger to scrub plates, and damn, that hurt!

Could I wipe the counters? Took at LEAST twice the time it would normally take. Had to wipe sideways to try to get the edges, and I could only go as far as 10-inches from the wall and between the microwave, etc.

Could I make the bed? Forget it. Then again, I rarely make the bed, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Could I vacuum? Ok, I was able to get that under control. But if my "nails" were any longer, I don't think it would happen.
Could I do Laundry? No. Could I empty the garbage cans? No. Could I pick up dog poop? No (and amazingly enough, the dookie wasn't from Little Missy, but from our OTHER little yorkie, who is misbehaving in protest for bringing the interloper into HER home).

Could I skewer a poopy little dog and roast her over an open flame?

Absolutely.

Could I poke the men in my household to do the stuff I couldn't do? Yep.

Now came the bathroom test. I was able to slide my pants down with my palms. But when it came time to wipe? Gah!

Tried to wipe down the front way. The "nails" ran into the side of the bowl. Tried the back way. Same problem.

I ended up standing up, kicking off one pant leg and putting my foot on the stool.

Yeah, that worked. I also stabbed myself in the thigh.

Then I couldn't figure out how to put my pants back on again. I shuffled over to the bathroom door, cracked it and called, "Honey? Sweetie? Could you come here and help me for a minute?"

Hubby poked his head in the door. Took in me with my "nails", my pants down around an ankle---and zeroed in on the box of Tampons that happened to be sitting on the counter (just got them from the store and hadn't put them away yet).

"No." he said. "Oh HELL no!" And slammed the door.

So I tore those suckers off and called it a day. How in the heck could a person function with 1-foot fingernails, not to mention 3-FOOT fingernails?

Fingernail Woman says that the car crash (and subsequent nail breakage) "robbed her of her identity".

I'd say it more or less "robbed" her of being waited on hand and foot like she's been for the last 20 or so years. I can't believe the level of self-indulgence it would take to have this kind of hobby or how a family could enable it by decades of servitude.

Guess it's time to pull yourself up by those bootstraps, Lady.

All on your own, this time.

Rambling and Padambling...

A couple of years ago, I confessed that I'm one of those people who are gassy and sometimes inadvertently rips ass at the most inconvenient times. I have difficulty burping, and I guess the gas has to go somewhere, which is usually south. ;-)

Anyhoo, after the first of the year, I stuck ALL of us on Weight Watchers points plan. It wasn't really a New Year's resolution, but sort of a plan to make us all lose some pounds and get healthier.
The Big Kid and Little Guy don't follow it if they're out of the house, but there is no longer ANY processed junk here to snack on. I got one of those "choppers" that cut veggies into little itty bitty chunks and have been slowly replacing meat in low-fat sauces with vegetables, etc (you can hide them better that way).

I've lost 17 pounds since the first of the year (which has hardly made a dent, IMO), Hubby has lost a bunch, and Little Guy has lost a few. It's hard to tell with Big Kid, through all the layers of clothes he wears (his new thing is not to change his dirty clothes, but add a layer of clean on top of the dirty, which is an entirely different story for another day).

Oddly enough, while all the extra fiber in our diet has increased the number of ducks my guys are stepping on, my own barking spiders have inexplicably gone silent. Now I'M usually the one who gets spot-welded in the middle of the night. The dogs aren't afraid of me any more. For the first time, they come running to ME when somebody is blaming them for being the poofter or putting a hurt on their noses.

Except when I'm in the grocery store.

For some reason (maybe YOU guys can help me figure this out), the last 3 times while I was in our local store, my lower abdomen started churning and I had a sudden, painful, and urgent need to cut the cheese. Seriously! I don't think it's like extra walking or anything, because I've been out walking every time the sun is shining.

The first time it hit me, I squinched up my butt cheeks and made it five steps to the organic corner of the produce section (I was across the store from the bathroom and there was nobody around) and totally let fly before scurrying away.

I figured that if anything wilted, it could be blamed on the lack of preservatives or pesticides or veggie genetic engineering. Who knows---the last 3 out of 4 times I've bought organic veggies in a bag, I've found some kind of larvae in there noshing away. The best scenario would be that my natural gas suffocated them so the next person didn't get a live and wiggling surprise.

At least that's what I tell myself. ;-)

During the second visit to the store, the guys and I were standing in front of the Lean Pockets in the freezer section (which was fairly crowded with shoppers), and I was telling Big Kid---"the difference between Hot Pockets and Lean Pockets is the fat content, and no, I'm not going to buy any Hot Pockets, so if you avoid the nasty multi-grain ones, you're not going to find much of a difference in the taste. Pick one that you might eat already or not".

I'd just spent the last 15 minutes fending off loud and public whines from this 21-year-old who doesn't HAVE A JOB or contribute any way to the household, that ran along the lines of, "Why won't you buy me chocolate milk? I have a RIGHT to have chocolate milk if I want it! Why do YOU have to be so cheap?" or "Why can't you buy GOOD stuff like Fried Mozzarella Sticks?" or "You don't expect ME to eat GENERIC BRAND mandarin oranges/oatmeal/kidney beans/whatever do you? I'm not going to eat diet or generic crap! And why are you so CHEAP?" arrggghh

So we're standing in front of the Lean Pockets, he's still bitching and moaning, and I had sudden and massive cramps. The bathrooms were just up at the end of the aisle and over 1.

I took a step in the right direction, but that little solitary step unleashed the butt monkeys from hell. At that point, I figured that trying to rein them in would be futile and just let them run rampant. Prolly hit the Richter scale at about 7 out of 10. In noise, at least.

On to Plan B.

I turned to Big Kid in the middle of his "I'm not going to eat diet food, and why was I so damn cheap" rant and said loudly, "For God's sakes, if you have to fart that bad, can't you at least go outside? What in the heck is wrong with you?"

So while everybody in the freezer section was giving Big Kid the hairy eyeball I took the cart, and Little Guy and I ran like hell (with disgusted looks on our faces).

The 3rd time was just Little Guy and me. Big Kid was too embarrassed to show his face at our store after "his"--ahem--21-bun-salute. Luckily, when the cramps hit me, I was 10 feet from the bathroom. So I left Little Guy with the cart, locked myself in there and farted myself silly. Came out (no fan in there, so I left the door open to air it out) and got hit with another wave of cramps. Went back in and did it again.

Came out, and there was a lady waiting to use the facilities. Boy did I feel bad. Apologized to her in advance.
Since then, I'm sort of afraid to go back. I've been having Hubby drop by and pick stuff up. Is it some sort of psychological trained response like Pavlov's Dog? Any ideas?

Mum's the Word

I've said this before and I'll say it again.

I love my mom with all my heart.

But as I wrote in a previous post entitled Mummy Dearest, there are just some things that go above and beyond daughterly duty and love.

In the above post, adult children kept their mom's corpse in an upstairs bedroom for a couple of years after she died of natural causes. They wouldn't admit to others outside the family that she had passed away...she was always "too unwell" to see anybody, and they'd go up and spray bug spray and air freshener on her once in awhile. As soon as the home's air conditioning sh*t the bed, the jig was up. Mom got so stinky, even the neighbors' noticed.

Oooh, that smell. Can't you smell that smell?

Ok, I'll have that song in my head all day now.

Oh and they had her propped up watching her favorite TV shows for the entire time. Eww.

Although I never saw any follow-up, I have a sneaking suspicion that they might have been collecting her social security checks, because they were all living in Mom's house. But's that's just me.

There's no way London sisters Josephine and Valmai Lamas were cashing in on Mom's check surreptitiously though.

Mom's officially dead.

But the two have been paying a funeral home to keep her in cold storage for the last 10 years.

Originally they didn't agree with her cause of death---an embolism brought on by a leg thrombosis, and wanted to keep her on ice so they could get a second opinion. Apparently they didn't get one, or get the one they wanted. But they're still not ready to bury her.

Although Mom has degraded over the years, Valmai still comes to pull her out of the fridge to sit with her every Saturday on her lunch hour.

Sister Josephine comes to touch up her foundation and lipstick, and to pack fresh padding in Mom's stomach cavity. Yep, that's right.

I am going to leave explicit instruction in my will to have my corpus disposed of immediately.

That is just too freaking weird.

Doods

Another fundamental difference between men and women.

I would sooner plant myself face first onto a cast iron whirly sprinkler than admit I had a 5-inch hair growing out of my nipple.

Much less alert the media and try to get into the Guinness Book of World Records.

urk.

Stop Bugging Me!

I hate bugs. Except for maybe RolyPolys and Ladybugs. They're kind of cute.

The rest of them scare the doody out of me.

There are a couple of bug stories that really freak me out.

Twenty years ago my older brother, who is a musician, traveled around the bar band circuit in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. The band didn't get paid much, but there were other perks----booze, groupies, the possibility of being discovered and becoming the next big hair band like Warrant or Faster Pussycat.

They traveled around---and often slept in---a van and lived a somewhat communal life, sharing spandex pants, girls and hair gel.

The band had been on the road for months, and my brother had been feeling pretty itchy for about a week. He thought he might be having a reaction to some of the hair products he'd been using, so at one overnight stop at a motel, he examined his scalp after taking a shower.

He had crabs. They all had crabs.

In fact, the lead singer had them so bad, they had infested his chest hair and----OMG----he had crabs crawling around in his mustache!

Eeek! I'm starting to itch all over just thinking about it.

The other story that freaked me out was in a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago, about a kid who had spiders in his ear. I think that was probably the worst bug story I'd ever heard.

Until today.

A man in Cambridge, New Zealand suffered buzzing, ringing and itching in one ear for almost two years. His doctor tried flushing the ear (to no avail), and he once got some temporary relief by having it suctioned.

He was finally sent to an ear specialist. The nurse took one look in his ear and called in the doctors.

'Centre director Theresa O'Leary said she was amazed to see an infestation of "very active, tiny, bulbous, semi-transparent mites moving around in a moist layer and white eggs present all over the canal and eardrum.



"There were about a 100 of them. It was a well-stocked breeding ground." '
AIGGGHHHHH!!!!!

"The infestation has stunned ear therapists and a clinical microbiologist who are unaware of any other documented cases of mites thriving and reproducing in a human ear."

I DON'T CARE!!!!!!!

I'm REALLY getting earplugs this time.

With a Friend Like This....

I've been cheering the Future Milfs from the sidelines.

Blogging buddies Girl in Her Underwear, Mamma, Mrs. Mayhem and Oh, The Joys! have all signed up. Way to go, ladies!

While I haven't signed up to be a future Milf, I have been trying to diet sporadically.

Some days it's just too hard to concentrate on creative ways to cook carrots when all the guys are hollering for spaghetti and meatballs!

So I just try to take it one day at a time, and take dieting inspiration where I can find it.

Today is one of those days. This morning I was reading the news and came across this tasty treat:

Chilean artist Marco Evaristti presented his friends with a meal of pasta with meatballs.

He cooked it in his own body fat, which had been extracted by liposuction last year.

"The question of whether or not to eat human flesh is more important than the result," he said, explaining the point of his creation.

"You are not a cannibal if you eat art," he added.

AIIIGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

There ain't no freaking sketties going to be served in THIS freaking house for at least a freaking month!

It will take a gallon of Lysol to scrub that image from my brain.

Now where in the hell are my carrot sticks?

Mixing it Up and Making a Mess

Since I wrote about Macaroni and Feet the other day, I thought I'd add a few more things that have been grossing me out lately.

What is it with the recent mixing it up of foodstuffs? Is there a new kind of "fusion" cooking in the wind?

We used to give a friend of mine crap about Poutine. Apparently it's a popular comfort food or fast food or both (I'm easily confused) in Eastern Canada. They even serve it at McDonald's and Burger King.

For those south of the border who have absolutely NO idea what Poutine is---it's French Fries and fresh cheese curds smothered in brown gravy, preferably beef or pork.

Well I like French fries. I like cheese curds too. And I guess I like gravy on roast beast. But all together?

No thanks. Thinking about it makes my colon sqwinch up in horror.

The other day, I read an article about a company in Du Bois, PA that has taken on the task of developing Peanut Butter Hot Dogs after a desperate mother appealed to them for help.

Apparently Snotleigh refuses to eat anything that isn't covered in peanut butter, and she was at her wit's end.

(I'm using the term "wits" loosely. To be perfectly honest, those kind of parental shenanigans annoy the hell out of me, and after looking at a picture of the poor kid, I'm convinced that the last thing he needs is more peanut butter. He needs a bicycle!)

And now comes along KFC with their "Famous Bowls". If they're famous, how come I'm just hearing about them? I'm pretty sure I'd remember something so--uh--hurlworthy.

First is a layer of mashed potatoes. Then Corn. Then chicken gravy. Then fried popcorn chicken. Top it off with a nice helping of their Three Cheese Blend!

For cripes sakes, you might as well give it all a good twirl in the blender and suck it through a straw.

Better yet, you could even skip that part and mainline it!

Throw in a biscuit and honey butter for good measure!

Last but not least, we come to the Gateway Grizzlies in St. Louis.

They may never be known for their baseball skills, but they certainly are getting some notoriety for a snack they're serving in their concession stands.

Bacon cheeseburgers.

What's so bad about that? you might ask.

Like the burger. Like the cheese. Love the bacon.

Nestled in between two halves of a Krispy Kreme donut.

AIGGGGHHH!!!

What's next?

Philly Cheesesteaks dipped in chocolate?

Gag Me With a Spoon!

I've got my bitchypants on this morning.

Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Sunday night, little guy complained of having a sore throat.

Rut row.

He has sensory integration issues, so usually when it gets to the point where he says he's sick, it means he's really really sick.

Number One son woke up Monday morning, and he was ill as well. I called the doctor.

I'm amazed that nowadays in a doctor's office you can get a strep swab and have the results in 15 minutes. Even a short few years ago, we'd have to wait for a couple of days for lab results.

Yes. They have strep. Happy summer vacation!

Our nephew, who is visiting, was fine the last time I checked. I locked him in a closet to keep him away from contagion and have been slipping him peanut butter sandwiches under the door.

Just in case someone from Child Protective Services is reading this---I'm kidding. Really, I am!

So last evening I decided to make comfort food. The guys didn't feel sick enough to require soup, they wanted something more substantial. Chicken wings and macaroni and cheese. Okey doke.

I got the expensive stuff with the creamy sauce. Nothing is too good for my sick guys.

Hubby came in from work and saw me flopped on the couch.

Can I help? Did I ever mention I was married to a fabulous man?

"Would you drain the macaroni and put the sauce together? And pull the wings out of the oven?"

We fed the sick guys first, because frankly, none of us wanted to sit with them and it would be rude to spray disinfectant in their faces while they were eating.

Number One took a bite. And pushed his plate away. There's something wrong with the macaroni and cheese. Did Mom buy that generic stuff again?

Believe it or not, there are macaroni and cheese snobs. He lives in my house. It's Kraft (the Cheesiest!) or nothing.

No, she bought the expensive stuff for once, said Hubby. You're just used to the day-glo kind.

The little guy cleaned his plate, but didn't ask for another helping on the mac, which is amazingly out of character. Usually he'll check the level in the pot over and over to make sure there's enough for seconds. Boy, he must feel terrible!

I went in the kitchen and looked at it. It looked ok.

I got a spoon and tasted it. WTF?

Hubby came in the kitchen.

"Did you taste this?" I asked. "It's revolting! It tastes like feet! It's even...garlicky!"

He looked sheepish.

"Don't tell me. You put GARLIC in the macaroni and cheese? What in the hell is wrong with you?"

He got a little indignant. But I always put garlic in!

Since when? I would have remembered macaroni and feet! And while we're at it---if you're going to screw it up, why not add some salt and pepper to even it out? Why just...garlic?

I thought back. I can't remember the last time Hubby actually made macaroni and cheese. I've seen him obliviously trip over the boys while they were on their knees begging him not to put garlic in their mashed potatoes, but macaroni and cheese?

What kind of person desecrates the sanctity of comfort food?

When I let the nephew out of the closet to eat, he ate the mac and cheese. Even asked for seconds. Raved about it loudly. A little too loudly, if you get my drift.

Which has led me to a couple of conjectures.

The nephew is eternally grateful to eat something that doesn't have salsa in it (he lives at Grandma's house, and she puts salsa on everything).

Or that really was five bucks I thought I saw hubby slip to the kid when he thought I wasn't looking...and we already know that he'll eat anything for money.

Hope everyone has a happy and healthy day!

Just Can't Take My Word For It....

That silly man Sven read my previous post about Bertie Bott's and wrangled his whole fam damily into participating into a taste test of their own.

You can read all about it here at: Sven The Culinary Sadist's Memos .

I Guess I'll Go Eat Worms

Since I already stuck my toe in the grossology pond with boogers yesterday, I thought I'd risk one more little foray before backing out of the topic completely (at least for the time being).

So again, a warning. If you're easily grossed-out, run away. Run far, far away. No mercy if you stick around.

My family loves Harry Potter. Yes, I know that puts us in the "Sheeple" category, but we just don't care.

Who wouldn't find a mystical world--where some of life's problems could be solved by a potion or a wave of a magic wand, appealing---at least in fantasy?

If that makes us Satan's Spawn, then so be it.

A couple of years ago during the holidays, my nephew was visiting, and I bought all the guys Bertie Bott's Flavor Beans from a big display at the grocery store.

For the Muggles who must live in caves and aren't up on Potter-lore--in the books and movies--Bott's Flavor Beans are jelly beans that come in surprise flavors. They range from the sublime (Toasted Marshmallow) to the grotesque (Vomit).

Jelly Belly, the company that reportedly was the favorite jelly bean brand of former President Ronald Reagan, got the contract to produce Bertie Bott's Flavor Beans in the US.

Ok, call me naive, but I thought that the gross flavors would really be like lime flavor masquerading as "spinach", or licorice disguised as "black pepper". I know I was brought up in the era of "Slime" and "Garbage Pail Kids" trading cards, but those weren't actually items that were meant to be consumed.


Slap me upside the head with a cluestick for being such a dumbass.

The flavor guide doesn't actually encompass all of the available flavors. There are more, such as earthworm, rotten egg, soap, spaghetti and bacon.

A jelly bean with the essence of smoked pork. Oh joy.

So, silly Moi, I ate a vomit-flavored bean.

Yes. It tasted like a tiny, chewy nugget of barf.

Not your "I had one too many tequila shots with lime and salt" kind of hurl, but more like your garden variety "I was just minding my own business, had a bit of fettucine, and some inconsiderate ass who was hoarding his sick days came to work ill and infected me with the stomach flu and I projectile vomited for 24 hours" kind of ralphage.

I even tried a soap-flavored one, which brought back childhood memories of getting my mouth washed out when I dropped the f-bomb. Blech.

I didn't have the guts to try anything else.

And neither did my guys. Wussies, every single one of them.

So, as a Bertie Bott's veteran, what I want to know is:

How in the HELL do they know what ear wax and dirt is supposed to taste like, and who in the HELL do they get to do the taste testing?

I'm serious. Are there professional taste-testers for this kind of thing?

"I don't know about you Chuck, but I think these vomit beans could do with another flavorful squirt of stomach acid!"

What about earthworms? Is some guy
(because I doubt a woman would ever be stupid enough to take this job, sex discrimination bedamned!) comparing a plate of the real thing against the product?

"Gee, this earthworm-flavored bean just doesn't have the same smoky, piquant and mulchy taste as these squirmy little guys right here!"


And now we've come full circle--back to boogers.

Since mucus--and boogers--are products of our bodies, wouldn't they (in theory) be affected by our personal environments and what we eat?

You know what I mean. If you eat garlic, your breath secretes a garlic odor. If you eat burritos or cabbage, the rambling pandambling phaduckas that fly out of your butt have your own special joie de vivre.

To me, the logical conclusion would probably be that the Bott's booger bean taste tester is prolly working off his own samples.

At least I would sincerely hope so.

"Mmm, yeah, that tastes right!"

So in effect, those who dare to eat Bertie Bott's Booger Flavor Beans are probably partaking in a taste of someone else's snot.

Don't get mad at me. I'm just taking this to its ugly, inevitable and obvious conclusion.

I think I'm going to fast for a week.

Want to join me?

A Booger a Day....

This post comes with a warning. If you're easily grossed-out or offended, hit the back button NOW. I mean it.

Let me start off by saying that I didn't begin the day with the intent on writing about boogers.

I know I wrote about schnozzes a couple of weeks ago, but it's not a fetish. I just read a lot of news and sometimes topics seem to well--you know--jump up and bite me on the nose.

I was reading some "Top Ten Lists" yesterday and came across one about "10 Weird Science Facts", which included a factoid about how eating boogers can be good for you.

No way. This has got to be a joke. Eww. Double eww.

At the risk of embarrassing my big kid, who is now in college and has a girlfriend--when he was a little boy, this used to be one of his more disgusting habits.

Once I remarked, "You know, I don't imagine I'd like to eat something that came out of my nose."

He said, "You should try it! It's good!"

So this morning I decided to google Mucophagy (betcha didn't know there was a name for it!) to see if there was more information than just an anecdote on a Top 10 List.

I found this on Ananova:


Top doc backs picking your nose and eating it

Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, according to a top Austrian doctor.

Let's stop right there and put this into a little perspective. This doctor comes from a country that has a village named F*cking.

Innsbruck-based lung specialist Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger said people who pick their noses with their fingers were healthy, happier and probably better in tune with their bodies.

Dare I say it?

You could probably say the same about people who aren't afraid to masturbate as well.

He says society should adopt a new approach to nose-picking and encourage children to take it up.

Take it up? Like soccer? The chess club?

Dr Bischinger said: "With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.

That's what they make those plastic squirty bottles for, Buster!

"And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system.

Dry remains? On the gross-out scale, this ranks up there with living with a corpse for 2 1/2 years!

"Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do. In terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great deal of bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it works just like a medicine.

Sounds like you can achieve the same end by licking the floor of a bus station bathroom. And it's just as appealing.

"Modern medicine is constantly trying to do the same thing through far more complicated methods, people who pick their nose and eat it get a natural boost to their immune system for free."

I guess it would be cheaper than Flintstones vitamins.

He pointed out that children happily pick their noses, yet by the time they have become adults they have stopped under pressure from a society that has branded it disgusting and anti social.

Yeah, as if anyone would like to kiss a person who has booger breath.

He said: "I would recommend a new approach where children are encouraged to pick their nose. It is a completely natural response and medically a good idea as well."

And he pointed out that if anyone was really worried about what their neighbor was thinking, they could still enjoy picking their nose in private if they still wanted to get the benefits it offered.

I'll be back later.

I need to get some Lysol and scrub the visuals from my brain now.

Betcha Can't Eat Just One!

There's got to be a Michael Jackson joke in here somewhere, but for the life of me, I can't think of one.

Is February "National Nose-Biters" month?

Is there a creepy fad diet I haven't heard of yet, like Atkins For Cannibals?

In the last couple of weeks, there have been no less than three separate articles in the news about nose-biters.

A Connecticut woman was convicted and faces up to 28 years in prison because of an altercation with her neighbor. She claimed she was "defending" herself when she stabbed the neighbor in the back of the head with her keys, pulled out chunks of hair and bit off part of her nose.

Kind of makes you wonder what they were fighting about. Stolen cable?

A woman in Minnesota was arrested a few days ago in another nose-biting incident. Police had to get a search warrant to enter the home where the fight took place to recover the piece, and found it in the kitchen. Luckily, they were able to re-attach it to the victim.

Neighbors were stunned. "I don't know how they did that ... they must have been drunk."

Ya think?

And finally the California guy who was visiting a family in Oklahoma with his girlfriend. As the family was sitting down to dinner, the girlfriend rushed in with a napkin on her nose, claiming that Greg Hill had bitten her. They summoned emergency services. When the medic realized that the nose was completely gone, he notified police.

"We looked around and tried to find a nose but couldn't find it," Cpl. Larry Edwards, a police spokesman, said. "I think he swallowed it."

Hill was booked into the Tulsa Jail on complaints of aggravated assault and battery, resisting arrest and (gak!) destroying evidence.

So what's suddenly sparking off these multiple cases of biting rage? Phases of the moon? Something in the water? Mind rays from Pluto?

Who nose?