On Snot

This is the hazard of having a blog with no editorial powers. Stuff like this seeps through!

An Ode To Snot

Snot is wonderful stuff. It leaks out of every human nose without any discrimination or preferential treatment for the rich, it sometimes has lovely colors ranging from apple green to dark burgundy and it is absolutely free! When it dries naturally it makes intriguing little balls that nestle in the nose hairs and can be gently detached and played with during boring conferences or while waiting for a dental appointment. They can also be squashed between the pages of a library book (as I have found, to my horror) or attached to the bottoms of people you like.

Yet we hardly ever talk about snot. If it could be saved and processed, we might be able to build our own brick-and-snot houses! Artists could create snot murals by saving all that flu snot for the brightly colored patches. Talk about a deep symbolism! And some people could save their snot in beautiful rooms and exhibit it in the old age to curious schoolchildren.

Instead, we pretend that we don't produce snot. We are taught never to just blow it out, never to use our sleeve (so handily provided) for snot-wiping, never to taste it. Snot is supposed to be Disgusting. Yet it is part of our immunity system, an automatic nose-cleaning system which works, an essential part of being alive. Corpses don't produce snot.