You are carrying on a normal conversation with someone. Or you are teaching a bunch of teenagers in a class. Or you are doing a presentation at work. Or you are at a work lunch with a group of Important People.
Then you feel something on your nose.
Not on the top of your nose. Not even the tip of your nose.
Something between your upper lip and your nose.
How do you calmly (and coolly), while in front of people, go ahead and check that there is nothing dripping from your nose? Your mind races and you think, "I could just slide my arm (or hand...please make sure you have hand sanitizer) briefly past my nose as I motion to something on the ceiling (surely I can think of a good reason to motion towards the ceiling)."
Or...perhaps you just go for it. Brazenly using your digits to check for rogue nasal excretion, whether in liquid or solid form. If you're a little more sanitary, you will likely use a handkerchief or tissue. Heaven knows that hauling a big white cloth or tissue up to your nose and rubbing it all around, obscuring your face for a brief moment doesn't exactly qualify as subtle and discrete.
The worst part is, 99% of the time, it is all in your mind. There is nothing there. NOTHING, I tell you! Why did you worry about it and call attention to your nose for no reason?Now everyone is looking at your nose to see if they can see what it was that caused you to check there. And trust me, it's not that they want to see it. But, similar to when there is an accident on the side of the freeway, people just have to look.
Then you find yourself in an endless loop of constantly checking, because it may have been a warning from your brain that something was looming. An impending breakout from the nostril barrier. And now everyone is looking at it to check, too.
It's all in your mind. I promise. Don't worry about it. Go on with your meeting, lesson, presentation, conversation. At worst, it is possibly a long nose hair sticking out and catching a breeze (mostly for you men over, say, 40 - I congratulate you if you are experiencing this at a younger age).
Except, then there is that 1% of the time when there is actually something that keeps us checking during the other 99%.
Maybe it's the bubble. Or the drip. Or the goobery booger shooting out in the middle of a chuckle. (I watched it happen to someone else, I swear.)
Okay...for me, once...about 14 years ago, it wasn't even my nose.
It's funny, I didn't even realize that earwax could actually come out of your ear involuntarily. Hmm.
