That Tickle

A Story by ToddK

A humorous look at the troubles of being male

It’s pretty much a guy thing, but some of you gals may have the problem, too. It’s one of those things seldom discussed in open circles. It is flat out taboo in most households. Mothers especially will run for cover with their hands over their ears when the subject is broached. Let’s get right to it then, shall we?

It starts as kind of a tickle. You subconsciously reach up and using your thumb and forefinger, you lightly pinch the end of your nose to end it. A few minutes go by. There it is again. You pinch again then you gently run a finger along the bottom of your nose to see if you can get a feel for anything foreign. Your ultra sensitive antennae detect multiple hits. You remember the last time you did any grooming in this area. You realize you are past the amount of time that would be socially acceptable. It is time for a little haircut then. Okay.

Your middle finger and thumb instinctively curl together and become like an oversized pair of human tweezers. The pinky finger is straight up like the pinky of a British Royal during tea time. Technique is everything. The “tweezers” are poised and ready. They will latch onto anything that might be poking out of that particular nostril. You clamp down, close your eyes tight and YANK. OUCH! MAN that hurts. You cringe with the pain that you KNEW was coming. You pause for a little time to recover. Your eyes water a little bit. You shake it off. You look at your still pinched fingers and inspect the harvest. Wow. There must be a dozen nose hairs in the bunch. The song “Bringing in the Sheaves” begins to play in your head. You envision a cleaned out airway and look forward to a future of easy breathing out of that side. But you can’t just end it all there. You gotta go in for the close up.

What you see before you can only be classified under “unbelievable”. Two of the fifteen or so hairs are like 12 gauge wire, the rest, a combination of stubby wannabes who must be their offspring. You wonder for a minute why the nose is so successful in growing hair, but the crown of your head not so much. You find an empty can to drop them into, but not before you cull out the biggest one. You cut it from the herd and lay it gently on the side of your computer. You like that you opted for a Mac. A Mac is white like snow and provides the perfect backdrop for visual inspections such as these. Deep dark ebony black against pure titanium white. The contrast is breathtaking.

You nudge the thing around for a few seconds on the hard plastic. It is a BEAST. As you look at it, you mentally compare it to past record holders. Length, stiffness, thickness and even girth are considered. You carefully pick it up as if it were a tiny bar of gold and look around for something to jam it into. The ONLY test that matters is stiffness, everyone knows that. Your own left thumbnail is nominated. At exactly 6.3789 inches from your eye, the test is conducted. The mathematical equation you must now solve is “How much force will it require by the right hand to get the nose hair to bend when it is thrust into the heavily fortified left thumbnail?” You conduct your delicate test. You wish you had a precision machine to do this, but lose all focus when the nose hair hits the thumbnail and just stops. It is as stiff as a matchstick. You exert more force. It bends, but only slightly. All background noise inside of your skull is immediately silenced. “What have we here?” the excited voice inside your head inquires, “I believe we’ve got a keeper!”

You are so excited at the prospect of having this new record holder right there on your computer. You nudge it around some more. You contemplate going around the neighborhood and knocking on doors to share the good news. You decide against it when you realize they’ll be reading about it in the papers anyway. You are then saddened as you remember you’ve never taken the time to be prepared for this moment. You wonder why, after all the previous champions (and grand champions), you had never bothered to make ready a suitable trophy case. Thoughts of baby food jars and pill bottles and zip lock bags dance in your head as candidates.

This monster needs a new home after it was so violently ripped from its’ old one. You briefly gaze into the future and see yourself proudly passing around the Gerbers jar for all to examine while you tell the tale of the day you snatched the big one. “THIS is no photo from a yellowed newspaper clipping, THIS is the real McCoy!”, you’ll announce to your audience. Pride is all over you right then. You deliberate on whether or not to start a Google search so you can contact the good folks at Guinness. People do need to know about this. You look for your phone to start by at least getting a picture.

After a few moments, it all falls apart as your brain jumps to thinking about phones, then landlines then about a call you were supposed to return 20 minutes ago. Your prized nose hair plummets to the bottom of your “to do” list and you casually flick it away...but you listen to see if, just maybe, you hear it hit the ground. You freeze. You listen. Nothing. “I may not have heard it, but it was probably because its own weight pulled it straight through the carpet and into the sub floor where it now stands, like a steel arrow that had been power launched from a bow into a wooden plank. They’ll find that thing one day long after you’re gone when they come in to replace the flooring. Your nose hair will likely be the top story on some future news cast. “LOCAL CONTRACTOR HOSPITALIZED AFTER STRANGE OBJECT PIERCES KNEECAP....THE STORY AT TEN.”

You attend to your phone call. About 5 minutes in, you feel something familiar. It is like another little tickle. You ignore it and continue your focus on the call. Tickle tickle. “What the heck is this? I thought I just got that whole business taken care of. Must be some residuals from the beastly uprooting that happened before,” you decide. You make a mental note to investigate further at your earliest opportunity. Tickle, tickle tickle tickle tickle......”ARRGGGHHH”

You find a way to end the call. You immediately get up and venture off to the bathroom. Your radar is up and you are ready to zero in on this menace. You realize that the one you just plucked and all his buddies were just a ruse. A MAMMOTH nose hair was still in there, hiding, as if it could, and you are now on a full scale search and destroy mission.

You arrive in your bathroom; your ready made extraction station. You position yourself in front of the mirror and do a quick check. Nothing extraordinary. Just a regular nose, Regular face. Tickle tickle tickle. “I’m on to you dude!” You lean in close and place a finger on the end of your nose and push up. This action causes all of the contents of your inner schnoz to be thrust outward in a very gruesome display. The reflection you see is a horrifying scene. It is all a nasty mix of black, white and pink. On one side, the left nostril is bushy, snarled and in severe need of a good thinning. The right, however, appears freshly groomed and in need of no noticeable repair.

You let go. Your face slowly resumes its’ normal shape. No tickle. “Could I have somehow dislodged the thing when I did the pig snout maneuver?” You pause. You scrunch your nose a couple of times. Nothing. “Ok, I’ve got more important things I need to be doing, for crying out loud. I’ve got nothing better to do than single out a rogue freaking nose hair over here? This mission is complete!”

You reach for the bathroom door knob, you turn it and pull. Tickle tickle tickle. “What the $#%&# is going on in here?” You SLAM the door back shut and move back to your station in front of the mirror. You’re starting to get mad. You gaze into the mirror as your finger comes up and literally JAMS your nose into the porcine position. You are getting so ticked you are actually hurting yourself. While scouring the right nostril with one eye, the other drifts to the counter in search of a tool better suited for this delicate task. “Aha! REAL tweezers. Now we’re talkin’”

You pick up the tweezers and do a quick eye blink to allow the one eye to fully zoom in on the right side. You squint the other eye nearly shut. You know you must look like a mad scientist peering into his microscope, but you don’t care. You lock in on the nostril. Using the tweezers, you begin to sort through what is left in the right nostril and find nothing amiss. You dig in a second time. Nothing again. You let go. “What the heck is going on in there?”, you ask yourself expecting no real answer.

You drop your head and kind of do a shake to get all of your contorted facial muscles back into their original shape. You then lift your head, pin your nose back again and go in for a follow up survey. “What am I missing?” The scenery is much the same and since you see nothing out of the ordinary, you commence a process of elimination and begin plucking nose hairs one by one, completely at random, hoping to extract the actual culprit. “YEOW!” “DANG!” “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!”

After about three good plucks, you let go of your nose, drop your hands and step back. Your eyes are filled with tears. You sneeze. You blindly paw at the toilet paper roll till you’ve unraveled enough to blow seventy five noses. You blow. You catch your breath. You wonder if you might be bleeding from it all, but are afraid to look. You wait. “Did I get that little #$#%&%?”, you question yourself out loud? You wait some more. You begin to relax a little bit. “Ok, here we go. This is better. Must have been one of them I’ve just plucked that was touching the outer edge of my nostril. That’s gotta be it cuz whenever I would lift my nose and begin a new inspection, it would...” Tickle, tickle, tickle....

”OK, THIS IS IT! I”M GONNA FRIGGIN YANK YOU OUTTA THERE RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!”

You go back to the mirror and already have your nose pinned back when you get there. You are boiling mad and SOMEBODY is going to have to pay. You are shoving the tip of your nose back so hard to your face that you begin to see little blackheads popping under the pressure. You want to stop and examine THIS phenomenon, but you are too embroiled and go back to your rage.

You look again. This time you are muttering things like “I’m on to you buddy” and “I’ve got your number you little weasel” and “You WON’T get me THIS time”. None of what you are saying is intelligible even to yourself, however, because your face is so stretched out that your upper lip can no longer make contact with your lower one. What comes out is complete gibberish. You hope no one is outside the bathroom door right then listening to all of this, but figure if they were, you would throw embarrassment to the four winds and drag them inside to act as your assistant.

Tickle, Tickle, TICKLE!!! “This is KILLING ME!!! ARGGHHHH! I’m dying here!” You have now managed to grasp the edge of your nostril WITH the tweezers and are turning the right side of your nasal cavity completely inside out. You feel the tweezers begin to pinch THROUGH the flesh, but you shrug it off. You know there will be a scab later, but if you have to cut your entire nose off to quell this incessant tickle you are willing to do it. You have already mentally pictured which knife you’ll use. “Where IS this cotton pickin’ thing?”

You look. You let go. You wait. You look. You let go. You wait. Tickle tickle. “I’m gonna MURDER that nose hair when I find it. I’m losing my MIND here!!!!! Maybe if I twist the LEFT side up, I will some how get a new look at the right side.”

You slowly release the grip on your aching right nostril. Tears are streaming down your face and you look like you just took an overhand right from Tyson himself. It is a sad and unbecoming picture. You cup some warm water in your hands and splash your face. You towel dry. Better. You grit your teeth, curl up your toes, grab the tweezers and lean in hard. You somehow get your right arm snaked around the back of your head and get the tweezers close to the left nostril. You focus on getting the tool to grab the edge just like you’d done on the other side and the reflection gets you confused. Your right hand is in place, the tweezers are poised and ready, but as you try to negotiate a path toward the target, your hand moves away from your nose instead of toward it. “What the hell? FRIGGIN MIRROR IMAGE!!!!! MY BRAIN DOESN”T WORK THIS WAY!” Tickle tickle tickle.....”I AM LITERALLY GONNA DIE RIGHT NOW! ARRRRGGGHHH!”

You drop your hands to your sides. You breathe. You regain your senses. You decide to calmly return to this slightly bloodied crime scene with a renewed attitude. You use your left hand to hold the right hand in place and guide the jaws of the tweezers to the left nostril. You’re there. “Perfect. Ok, now pinch. Got it. Now what?” You somehow pull up with your right arm and cause the left nostril to flare a bit. Your arm is beginning to fall asleep from being wrapped around your head so long, but you push through. Your focus is now on the left side, but you remember the tickle was on the right. “Oh yeah,” you think, “What am I doing over here? The search HAS to be done on the right. Tickle tickle. You realize you are wasting precious time.

You take a quick glance. “Wait a minute. What was that?” You see it. “Oh my dear God in heaven. How did I miss THAT?” There, snaked along the outer reaches of your inner right nostril is the enemy. He is dark, long, extremely thick and foreboding as hell. He glistens in the incandescent light shining down from above your sink. “This,” you determine, “this is old growth forest.” If nose hairs had a face, this one would be laughing in yours right then and there. This elusive little serpentine rascal had somehow camouflaged himself and was right there, right in plain sight, but hugging the outer wall this whole time. “Well I’ll be.” The hair KNEW he was about to be discovered and had come up with a ploy to fool you. You hear Maxwell Smart in your head. “It was the old cling to the side of the outer-inner nostril trick.” You’d been duped.

Your enemy has attitude a mile long and looks to be prepared for an all out brawl. You get yourself set to grasp this mighty oak about midway up its trunk with the tweezers. You reach in, squeeze down and make a slight tug on the thing to make sure you have a good solid grip. Somewhere, deep in the back of hour head you feel the tug. It cannot be explained any other way except to say that only a SURGEON should have access to this area, and YOU should be fully ANESTHETIZED before he ever goes back there.

You pull a little harder. The tug at the back of your brain grows more intense as you continue to test the strength of the line. Tug tug tug. Pretty solid jute there. You could probably sell it to the Navy later for them to use tying off Battleships and Aircraft Carriers to the pier. It wasn’t going to break. It is too ornery to break. You imagine this monster hair as it will soon come flying out of your nose with what may include a bloody chunk of brain matter attached to the other end of it. Quitting now seems like the smartest answer, but you know you will need a straight jacket soon if you do. This formidable giant has to come out....NOW!

“Can I take the pain?” Tug tug tug. “I don’t know if I can....” Tug tug tug. “GOL-LEEEE that hurts. YEEEEOWWWW!” Tug tug TUUUUGGGG. SNAP! The wretched thing is ripped from its root and out flies a lone hair that resembles something from the hide of an old and gnarly razorback. You feel immediate stinging and full on cranium pain, but you are all over this thing. You refocus and look the thing over. It has it all: Length, Width, Stiffness, GIRTH by the truckload and a quirky kink. A kink right in the middle, as if it had somehow needed to make a corner somewhere back in 1983.

You are overjoyed with the success and begin looking for a place of safekeeping for it to rest. You choose your bright white porcelain countertop. It is similar to Mac plastic only more spacious. You are a little winded from your ordeal and you take a seat on the commode. Your mind is racing and the area just behind your pituitary gland is throbbing in pain. It was all worth it though. This HAD to be a record breaker. The end of it is sporting a perfect (but freakishly large) hair follicle. The follicle is a whitish yellow color and is quite bulbous. It looks like the grand prize prize winning leek from the state fair. You figure you may as well quit your job. They would be PAYING to see THIS specimen like they paid to see Bonnie and Clydes’ bullet ridden ’34 Ford. “Easy Street here I come.” Things were about to change at your house. You take a minute to relax again. You replay the past hour or so. You give yourself a much deserved pat on the back for a job well done. “Holy Crap! That was really rooted in there.” You search your medicine cabinet for an empty pill bottle when it happens.

It is the same, only different, and it’s from the left side now.

Tickle tickle tickle.

“Time to go full on nuclear.....where the hell are my hemostats? We’re yanking the whole she-bang.”