Follow Your Nose

Sometimes when you need to blow your nose, a box of tissues is just not close by. I understand this. In college, I would only buy tissues if I had gotten sick enough to go through them in a few hours. The rest of the time, I used toilet paper. Sometimes even napkins. I am not ashamed to admit my gross habits (for the record though, I have gotten past this and currently have three boxes of tissues on my desk ... but that is only because work pays for them since they are office supplies).

When tissues are unavailable, there are alternatives, some better than others. If I had to rank the alternatives, I would put toilet paper at the top of that list, followed by cheap napkins (softer than the nice ones), then nice napkins, then paper towels, and then...creative options. Thankfully, I have never gotten to the creative options. Fred, on the other hand, has.

One night I was at his apartment making enchiladas and he decided that he absolutely had to blow his nose immediately. Sure, there were napkins and paper towels in the kitchen. And there was toilet paper in the bathroom. If he were truly a purist, I am sure his anal-retentive roommate had some tissues to spare (Actual real tissues! What a concept!). But Fred opted for the creative option. His choice? A corn tortilla. I'm sure his inner monolouge was something like "I'm such a rebel, I am blowing my nose with food!"

I can't even begin to describe how nauseating it is to see someone blow their nose into the food you are cooking, but trust me, it was not a good time.

I was completely appalled that he decided to use a corn tortilla to blow his nose out of some sick interest rather than out of necessity. Furthermore, an unfried corn tortilla is actually kind of crumbly and not really a good material for this, ergo, it did not exactly work out the way he had hoped. Not to mention, they were much more expensive than any other option and they were what I was fucking cooking for dinner.

I don't know if he thought he was being innovative, funny or both. I found his display to be none of the above. And he was making his own dinner for a very long time after that.