Booger Than You
I don’t mean to brag, but my family is booger than yours. In fact, I would even venture to say we are the boogest.
As my wife so eloquently put it:
We have enough boogers in this house to fill a pool.
The Black Plague entered our home two weeks ago as a deceivingly slight discomfort in my wife’s throat the day before the Twins’ First Birthday Party EVER Extravaganza, and while this pivotal moment in American History was an overwhelming success, she was sadly not able to enjoy the festivities to her fullest capacity, as Mount Saint Mucus erupted mid-“Happy Birthday to You.”
Yes, that’s right. The Twins are now one year old. I intended to announce this with much more electronic fanfare and Michael-Bay-esque explosions, chronicling the event more extensively than the Royal Wedding for you, O Loyal Reader (as I am certain the mere mention of it now has you trembling in anticipation) but the Plague had other plans. My head is buried in the haze of infection, so a coherent reflection on the first year of fatherhood will have to wait.
If anyone can refer us to a competent sorcerer who won’t overcharge or accidentally turn us into newts, let me know.
. . .
I spent MLK weekend as a single parent while my poor, bedridden wife hacked up several hundred lungs interspersed between five-hour naps. The Twins and I did our best to avoid the quarantined area and left the house often in an effort to fend off the army of flesh-starved microbes bent on devouring us whole with the dumb, relentless determination of a limbless-but-still-crawling-after-you zombie.
Unfortunately, just as most zombie lore ends with the protagonist’s tragic, inevitable conversion to either hamburger or dead walker, the Twins and I could only fend off these biological warmongers for so long, and 5 days later (as opposed to 28), we, too, had adopted my wife’s vacant stare and mucus-generating capabilities.
The Twins have taken their newfound powers to creative lengths by sneeze-launching snot rockets into the atmosphere.
“I just got splashed. That wasn’t just a little sprinkle. That was like Sea World.”
–Yours Truly
A typical remedy for making a cold say “uncle” is achieving oneself plenty of rest. However, my wife and I have not had that capability. With two sick one-year-olds, we’ve been getting even less sleep than usual as they take turns waking up every hour or so during at night, drowning in their own snot. As I have explained previously in exhaustive detail, “crying it out” does not work in our house, so we spring stumble into action, further zombifying ourselves. This sickness/sleep deprivation combo has inspired fascinating behavior on my part. I have recently caught myself performing the following actions:
- washing a paper plate in the sink;
- searching for a left-turn signal while navigating a shopping cart through Target; and
- wondering why I couldn’t see the rain out the window, because it actually wasn’t rain–it was the sound of my bubbling Keurig coffeemaker, which I had just turned on five seconds ago.
. . .
We’re rocking badass pink tissue-abrasion mustaches. Our voices are cracking like teenagers. We’ve constructed elaborate Kleenex-wad sculpture installations where there once were visible garbage cans.
Admit it. You’re jealous of us.
.
You may also enjoy:
If not, come on over to our place so we can sneeze on you.
Twinfamy 
Aw man, that sucks! Hope you are all feeling better soon, and Happy Belated to the twinsies! :)
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Thanks! Yeah, I wish their birthday wasn’t so overshadowed by this mucus stormcloud, but it’ll be over soon.
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There’s no timing like bad timing. I hope that this comment finds you in better health. Happy 1st to the twins. 1 is a big year for parents. It means that you’ve nearly completed your sleep-deprivation training.
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Thanks, buddy. I think the worst is over–it’s just taking a while to exit the system, so to speak.
And yes, I’m so experienced in sleep deprivation I’ve added it as a bullet point on my resumé. I figure it speaks volumes about my perseverance.
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You paint a lovely picture… That is snot a home I would like to visit. Gotta run.
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Oh, come on, cough it up. You’re green with envy.
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I’m sorry for your suffering – but your writing makes it a pleasure to read and laugh about!
Love the paragraph with “pink tissue-abrasion mustaches!”
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Thanks! I feel like writing about misfortunes dampens the blow and provides opportunities to find humor in the situation.
I was pretty happy with the “pink mustache” paragraph myself. Thanks for noticing.
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I dunno about that…My family may be able to give yours a run for your money!!
Rampant Illness has caused us to morph into a pretty kickin’ superhero team: We’ve got The Phlegm, Phlem-bot, Captain Snot Rocket, and The Amazing Booger Blaster fighting germs with the greatest of ease all week long.
ACHOO! HAAACCK!! SPLAT! KA-POW!! ;)
P.S. Hope the twins had a blast at their 1st birthday party! Congrats on hitting such an awesome milestone! :)
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The title is yours if you want it. Don’t get me wrong–it’s been a blast (of boogers)–but I’m ready to breathe through my nose again. And it is for that reason that I hereby concede the World’s Boogest Family Trophy to you, O Loyal Reader. Enjoy.
P.S. Thanks! I can’t believe:
a) how fast it went, and
b) that we made it.
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ah, but you haven’t mentioned the coughing-so-hard-they-vomit moment. For the twins, that is, not your wife (although maybe her too, who knows). That was the big fave in our house in the small-fry years. Cough. Cough harder. Cough to get the goo-plug out of the back of the throat. Cough. Coughcoughcoughcoughcough PUKE.
Really just so much fun.
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My son is actually quite skilled at a variation of that. Instead of coughing until he pukes, he’s been known to throw zero-to-60 tantrums in a matter of seconds, and he’ll sometimes cry so hard that he causes the very same result, leaving me with a mini Incredible Hulk I have to somehow hose down.
I feel you.
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Jealous isn’t quite the word I’d use. But I do have my wife hawking, coughing and spluttering a ward-full of final-stage 80-a-day smokers. Sleep is very much an optional extra available in five minute bursts at work in our house at the moment…
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Sorry to hear, man. Looks like we’re finally all getting over this and I hope your wife does, too.
I also hope this reply didn’t wake you up. I’m typing really quietly, so I’m fairly confident it won’t, but if so, my apologies.
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I remember all that: the most important house-hold items become paper towels & tissues, the lack of which can cause a Major Incident. I gets better! Being vertical helps a lot, (them, not you – although probably that too) :)
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Yeah, I try to stay vertical myself when I feel like that. It doesn’t always help with the whole “getting rest” portion of recovery, but the “being able to breathe” part wins out, at least for me.
I can’t believe how many paper towels and tissues we go through. Treehuggers would probably want to punch me in the face with their dirty hippie fists.
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