Trumpet Nose

I am in perfect touch with my emotions. When a certain person texts me, when I hear a nauseatingly familiar chortle, when I get an undeservedly terrible grade, when I look awful every single time the salesboys come into the office and the onee Friday I look positively adorable their meeting is cancelled, I know exactly how I feel about it. How? It all comes down to the center of my face.

My nose.

Ever since I was a little girl I have had an attitude when it comes to blowing my nose. And that attitude is "loud and proud". But all that changed one day when I was about five. I was tooting my horn, so to speak, when Kelly and Heather made fun of me and called me "trumpet nose". I was so ashamed that I snuck into Joseph's crib and wept bitterly. That poor babysitter.

But they were right, I did have a trumpet nose. I would blow my nose with such passion that no one could mistake, things were coming out of there when I lifted a tissue and blew.

Over the years I have tamed my trumpet nose and rarely will I blow my nose as loudly as I used to. However, every once in awhile I find myself taking a deep breath as a tissue comes closer and closer to my face, and then all of the sudden BDDGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRBBBBB. And I stare at the tissue wondering where in the world that came from.

But one day, I found out. My mother asked me, after I had blown my nose in such a way, what I was so upset about? I looked at her, completely bewildered. Of course there was something bothering me, but I considered myself a master at covering up my emotions. How had she figured it out? In an answer to my unspoken question, Mom said, "You blew your nose. You only blow it like that when you are angry or upset."

"I do?"

Mom surveyed me quizzically. "Yes. Didn't you know?"

I had not known, but now that I did, I was quite delighted. I had a quirk! Something that I do without even thinking about it! I had always wanted a quirk, an action that was thoroughly and irrevocably my own.

My nose has been my key to my fabulous intuition. Sometimes I'll meet a person, and as soon as they leave I find myself reaching for a tissue. Sometimes it takes a few encounters for me to finally understand that I clearly do not like this person.

Other times I will be going someplace and suddenly I'm frantically searching the car for a tissue box. Obviously I do not wish to be going to the place that I am headed.

The phrase "just follow your nose" is especially applicable to me. I have followed my nose away from the most stressful of acquaintance, fled when I felt a sneeze coming on from the most dastardly of decisions, and excused myself from the awkwardest of situations by acknowledging my need for a tissue. It is beyond me why anyone would ever get a nose job, when mine has been so faithful to me.

When someone says, "the answer is right in front of your nose" they are incredibly wrong. The answer isn't in front of my nose. It is my nose.