Do I Have A Roman Nose?
THEY SAY THAT CAESAR’S IMPERIAL ROME had the best system of water delivery in the Ancient World. There was a series of aqueducts, canals, pipes, and fountains that covered hundreds of miles and kept the city of Rome clean and quenched.
I think they could have learned a thing or two if they’d been able to study my sinuses in the morning.
When I wake up every morning the entire function of my body seems devoted to the movement of fluids. It’s a good thing that I can blow my nose with my left hand clutching a Kleenex while my right hand is assisting me in doing an impression of the Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Is Paris Burning?”) Fire Department.
By the time my initial purge is done I feel five pounds lighter and the Wabash River is three inches closer to Flood Stage. I don’t know where it all comes from. During the night am I transformed into a sponge? Is my body taking moisture from the air like a fern? Am I the “Quicker Picker-Upper?”
If my first geyser activity was it I could just dismiss it all as, perhaps, Tidal Action – like the Bay of Fundy approaching low tide. The trouble is that this can go on for two or three hours where the only thing missing is a fish ladder. I go through a box of tissues like…like…like a box of tissues.
When my nose sends the signal to my brain that, “The dam has broken!” I grab the nearest tissue, handkerchief, or (embarrassingly) pancake and brace myself for the flood.
It ain’t Mrs. Butterworth, I’ll tell you that.
Having to deal with this for a couple of hours can be exhausting. I just got up two hours ago and I already feel the need for a nap. My nose is turning red from all of that tissue business, my skull is feeling like a used piñata, and I’m going to have to go buy some more tissues.
First, it’s one nostril. Then, when that one raises the flag of surrender, the valves open on the other. I didn’t know that noses could do that.
I’m impressed as well as depressed. My sinuses can operate as smooth as the locks on the Panama Canal. I guess that makes my upper lip the north coast of Colombia.
Once I get through this morning ritual the rest of my day can proceed as it will, but until then I can understand how the Egyptian Pharaoh and his Chariots must have felt when he decided to chase Moses and the Israelites into the Red Sea – five minutes too late.
Things could be worse. Despite all of this every morning nonsense when things eventually dry out I still have a nose. I still have sinuses, and my stock in the tissue company continues to go up.
Down the Hall on Your Left 
Thanks, John, for enlightening all of us readers of your (wait, I’m gagging) early morning nose “adventures”. I just had breakfast, too. (Wait, I’m gagging again). However, your sinus problems every morning are not unlike my early years experience with my Dad. He had that early-morning chronic sinus, flowing freely from his nostrils, also. He used the kitchen to do what he could each morning to clear it up. He would run hot water from the kitchen-sink faucet, into a large bowl that my Mother used to put mashed potatoes in for dinner. Then he put salt in the water, lots of salt, and a towel over his head and one on his lap, lean over the bowl and lower his face into the hot water. Then he would inhale the salt-water up both nostrils, and then…..and then…..out through his mouth (wait, I’m still gagging). It was a nasty site to say the least. But……….it worked. He inhaled three or four mouthfuls through his nose and his head cleared up. I feel for your misery, John, but stay out of the kitchen.
(Wait, another gag coming on)
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So it goes. It could be worse. It could be hiccups every morning.
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