What the…? What just happened? What is that? I jump to my feet and stick my finger in my nose. That was stupid. I shouldn’t have done that. Uh-oh.
My eyes are beginning to water and it’s getting harder to breathe. Oh my God, should I call 911? “Ruby, what did you do? What did you stick in my nose!?” I realize how absolutely ridiculous sounds, but that’s what happened. We were playing on the floor, just kinda wrestling; I close my eyes for one teeny-tiny second and suddenly without provocation she decides to cram some small yet to be identified object into my nasal cavity. I wipe away a few tears and quickly survey the floor for potential culprits. Lego? Too big. Cheerio? Too crunchy. Ugh… Whatever it is, it’s soft, small and had no problem taking up residence next to my ocular nerve. Then, out of the corner of my good eye, I see something on the floor by the couch. They’re small, dark and there appear to be hundreds of them. That’s it! I get down on all fours, just to be sure, yup I’m positive. The unknown object has been identified. It’s a raisin. Ruby has pushed a raisin up my nose.
I should be worried, right? Yeah, I should definitely be worried. Oh boy, I can feel my pulse quicken, chest getting tighter… Must relax. What to do, what to do, what to do? I run to the bathroom. I can hear Ruby’s Frankenstein footsteps slamming into the floor behind me. I feel like I’m being stalked. She was so methodical. A ninja! That’s right – She was like a ninja. Her weaponry, her skill, her attempt to suffocate me was so quick and clean…professional, even. I’ve underestimated the little girl. She’s gonna be trouble. She lurches into the doorway, “Ah-ha dada!” I can see it in her eyes: She loves the panic she’s instilled in me.
I stare into the mirror for a few seconds. How am I gonna get this out of here — I can barely see it! I mean, it’s super stuck. I take a few steps back, place a finger to the left side of my nose and blow. I was expecting this raisin to shoot out and shatter the mirror, but to my horror the only thing that becomes dislodged is my right eye from its socket. This is worse than I thought. I sit down on the side of the tub and try to regroup.
Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that the practice of heavy mouth breathing has begun to make me dizzy. I’m scared that if I breathe deep enough through my nose, this irritating little juiceless grape will be snorted into my brain, causing instant paralysis or memory loss. What am I supposed to do? Do I go knock on the neighbor’s door and politely ask if they would mind fishing a small piece of fruit out of my nose? I can’t do that. They barley know me. And as far as I’m concerned, anytime you let someone dig something (raisin or other) out of your nose, you’ve just taken that particular relationship to a whole new level. They’ll always have that little tidbit in their back pocket, and I’d rather die than have someone hold that over my head.
I sit and think about this for a few more seconds, I was drawn out of my despair when Ruby came charging past the door carrying a wooden spoon and kicking a head of lettuce. This did not shock me. Ever since Ruby figured out how to open the refrigerator door, we’ve been finding random pieces of produce in the weirdest places. At first I thought I was going crazy. I found myself asking questions like, “Did I put those baby carrots in my shoe?” or “Was I making a salad on the couch?” and my personal favorite which came after lifting the toilet seat to find 2 spears of asparagus floating in there: “When did we eat that?” and “Someone needs to chew their food better.” Now I just get up and make sure that the door is closed, which is exactly what I did.
On my way to the kitchen I start to imagine what my life would be like if I had to live with this raisin in my nose full-time. One positive would be the possibility that it would absorb all of my seasonal sinus drainage. However, the side effect would be the ever growing mucus filled grape lodged in my head. Then I take into account that I have sinus and allergy problems year round. That raisin can’t hold my drainage; it’ll get too big, slowly swelling in my nose ’til Wham! It splits my skull and breaks my face bone. Cause of death… raisin, how humiliating.
Then I saw it, this was it… the answer. It was as if Ruby was leading me to the kitchen all along. She, who stuffs the raisin in, also knows the raisin’s out. The pepper shaker! I’m still not sure if this was one of the best or stupidest ideas I’ve ever had, but it seemed viable. The plan was to take a tiny palm full of pepper, slowly snort it into the unobstructed nostril, which will then cause me to sneeze. The force of the sneeze will unleash the raisin from my head and I would once again be able to breathe cleanly through my sniffer.
The first thing I noticed was the burning. It was like someone stuck the business end of a cigarette up my nose. Then it was the tears, which were followed by an awful and indescribable taste that glued itself to the back of my throat. Finally the sneezing started. It began withone simple “Achoo!” Ruby thought this was funny. It was then followed by approximately 146 brain-smashing, neck-snapping, mind-erasing bursts of snot and wind. Apparently Ruby did not think those were as funny, because I could hear her crying in between my, “Oh Gods!”
At some point during this fiasco the raisin did come out. I have no idea where it went; I just know that it is no longer in my nose. In fact, based solely on the ferocity of my sneeze-a-thon, I wouldn’t be surprised if upon exit, the raisin was going so fast it created a tear in the time space continuum and is now floating somewhere in an alternate universe.
I tried to think of an excuse, something awesome that would stand up on its own merit, and without question. But no matter how many times I twisted the events of the day to make them seem cooler, they just seemed to get more and more ridiculous. It took less than a second from the time Cathy walked through the door to ask me why one of my nostrils was flaming red and the other was twice its usual size. I decided to tell her the only thing she’d believe. It was stupid, unbelievable and 8 hours prior I would have thought the whole thing was implausible, but it was the truth: “Ruby stuck a raisin in my nose.”
