2000-05-20

One time, when I was being too much of a dismal teenager for my brilliant parents to comprehend, I landed in psychotherapy for a month. I requested to leave after a months time, telling my mother I felt "better" which really just meant I'd rather die that have to go back to him. It wasn't as if he was putting me through some serious mental ride I simply could not handle. No, I didn't ever talk to the man while we sat in his office with the a/c cranked up too high.

What we did instead was play checkers. I'd come in, he'd ask me if I had anything to say. I'd say no, turn over a couple of his silly desk toys that dripped fluids, sand and other such boring things and then he'd suggest a game of checkers. He won, all the time; I never came close, not even once. It was a horrible experience and sitting for an hour twice a week in the middle of August full of school-is-starting-soon anxiety is not why I hated it.

He picked his nose. In front of me. He put his finger right in there, dug around and wondered why I would sometimes refuse to jump his kings.

I was there at my suggestion since I wasn't sure what was wrong with me. The intervening years have been full of self-reflection so that I vastly aware of what's wrong with me: I am normal and want to understand myself, a confusing task I thought made me weird in mainstream, be popular high school. I really wasn't sure what I should say to this guy, so we played checkers and he was anything but subtle about picking his nose.

When one of his snot rocks landed on one of my checkers (I insisted on always being black just to make him suspicious of me) we had our only "psych" conversation. He asked me why I didn't jump his king. I was too shocked and disgusted to say, "because your big fat booger is lying on it and while you are okay with touching what's in your nose, I don't want to."

So I shrugged and he jumped me. "Did you want me to do that?" he asked, trying to pry into my brain. I am too clever of a person to be that transparent. "Yes, Doctor Greene, I have the desire to loose to you once again and I purposely let you jump me by letting my boogered checker sit there." No, I actually wanted to win and bought a checker set, roping my little sister into out-of-therapy honing of skills, which were pointless in the end.

I believe this man sucked suburban cash over flow by obsessively playing checkers with young people as a way to relive his childhood where he was unfulfilled in games since his parents stressed only personality building activities while never interacting with him as a child. The checker set represents the one he was given by an aunt that he was never allowed to play with.

So he thought I wanted to fail and we had a conversation about whether I generally choose not to do things when I know I am capable. I played along with him, telling him how I didn't do my homework all of the time (lack of challenge was the real reason) and then he said maybe next time we could talk more. We didn't: he picked his nose, we played checkers and I lost.

It's simply obnoxious to pick ones nose in front of other people. That is simple manners that he violated. It's not one of those sketchy and questionable areas like booby itches. People are allowed to itch in front of one another but women aren't supposed to touch their boobs in public. What are you supposed to do when your boob itches? I say that falls under that panties in your crack rule: wait until no one is watching and dive in.

I am not an obsessive person when it comes to manners. I freely burp in public, not loudly but if it has to come out, it has to. I fart in front of my friends, ask Julie all about corn pasta. I appreciate it when people say please and thank you and sometimes request that people amend their request with a please before I will do something. I love saying your welcome. I don't pick my nose, at least not in front of people.

I don't pick my nose in traffic (but I do itch my boobs). I don't pick my nose when I don't think anyone is looking. I clean my nose with water in the evening, especially during allergy season. I pick my nose with a tissue in public if there is something up there driving me crazy. I pick my nose when I am alone if I feel like it requires to be picked. And I do this for one simple reason:

If god didn't want us to pick our noses, he wouldn't made our nostrils fingertip sized.