Oh Nose!

I am a human person, and come with most of the regular add ons.  Ten fingers, ten toes, at least one chin.  Eyes.  Elbows.  A belly that has people cheerfully asking when I’m due, a wizard’s lock of grey hair.

Me at Publix.

But my favorite feature—my proudest feature by far—is my nose. My perfect, perfect nose.

Noses are very useful—they hold up your glasses, they tell you when it’s time to wash your clothes, they are invaluable in face-making from the snarl to the snarf.  Everyone should love their nose.  I love mine very much.

Did you know that the one thing we’re
sure of about how Cleopatra looked
 was that she had an arresting nose?
No images of her have survived,
but records exist of people talking smack
because she was a g-d BOSS
and they were mad about it,
and they mention her nose. 
I bet her nose was perfect, too. 
I bet she loved that nose. 
Get 'em, Cleo. 

How I feel about my nose.

I use it to point!  I use it to scrunch!  I have expertly honed using it in every day life to express a wide variety of emotions!

I have a sister and we look nothing alike—it’s like she got our dad’s eyes and mom’s face, and I got the opposite.   So she got mom’s nose, and I got dad’s.  And her nose is lovely—many noses are.  There are many well-formed noses out there.  But my nose is perfect.  It is def dad’s family nose—you look at my grandpa, my cousins, my aunt, and it’s right there, looking back at you. There is a lot of heritage in this nose, a lot of family history.  I have a standing arrangement with my eggs that if I ever do have a baby and it’s not wearing this nose, it’s going back in.

Pops, sporting the family schnoz circa 1945

Which is why it was particularly harrowing when I tried to break it at my last boxing class.  I know, I know, it’s boxing, what did I expect?  But that’s not…what happened.  Here’s the thing…

Boxing starts with like a seven minute “conditioning” period before you put your gloves on where you are regretting that you continue to make this choice and resent that even after three whole 

I feel like this should all be going much faster.

classes you are def still not in shape, you’ve been doing this for moments now, when do your clothes start to fit again?  And you wonder who invented “mountain climbers” anyway and then resolve to be a better boxer in case you ever 

encounter that person in the flesh at, say, arm’s length.  

Really gets you jazzed to give 110% in the rest of the class. 

THEN you put your gloves on, which is when you might notice that you were given two left gloves when you came in and you need to go get a righty.  And so you grab the offending instrument and head out of the room that the class is in, swift-like-a-bunny so as to not miss any of this wretched, exhausting, self-inflicted, satisfying, terrible violence.  You’re distracted, and hurrying.  And suddenly you have this quick, quiet voice in your head saying, “wait, that’s a-”

Wall.  It was a wall.

And THEN you slam face first into a plate glass window, crushing your perfect nose and interrupting the whole class and enacting the dumbest, gimmee-est, low-hanging-fruit-est gag from every cliché comedy ever.  Cliché because- that doesn’t happen in real life.  Except it does!  Or at least, it did. 

Class is now interrupted, since everyone thinks you’re part of some underground film crew punking them because obviously no one actually walks right into glass walls.  

Was it the glass door you walked into?  It was not, because they have kindly put decals all over the door, presumably to prevent just such a scenario.  In fact, it was probably the decals that caused you, in your hurry, to avoid the doors, because you thought the open seeming space next to them was definitely a much better way to try and exit the room.

Being a good citizen, you have now done your civic duty by leaving your own decal on the window, in the form of a detailed imprint of your face and ego smashing into said window.

Things that might, hypothetically, run through your mind should this situation happen to you:

This is such bull....

Ow

Stop looking at me

Ow

Is that snot or blood?

Am I going to work with a black eye tomorrow?

Hey, my glasses aren’t broken!  Zenni for life!

How do I make them stop looking at me?

I still need that other glove

Ow

Ow

So I run out like everything is cool, switch my glove, and come back like my head isn’t exploding and start boxing.  This makes sense, because embarrassed people don’t make good choices.

Luckily the boxing room is covered in mirrors (with one notable exception….) so I could check out the damage, which amounted to a blunt force trauma abrasion on my now very tender nose.  Did I 

I can't actually do this, because
it might involve touching my nose.

check this out like a normal person?  No I did not, I did it surreptitiously while trying to act like everything was fine.  Perhaps also luckily, I was now full of enough adrenaline to actually give that 110%.  DEFINITELY also luckily, my hands were sheathed in danger mittens for the rest of class so I couldn’t poke at my increasingly sore and swollen nose.

The next day, I was struggling with some basic functions I have clearly been taking for granted for far too long.  Like blowing my nose, how much I rely on scrunching for emotional expression, and ever touching my glasses.  

Did you know that in the Dominican Republic, the non-verbal
for "what?" is scrunching your nose, rather that the American
raising of the eyebrows?

Fortunately for me, it seems that when this nose was gifted to my family line in times of yore, whatever wood elf we bribed included enchantments of protection in the general nose perfection spell.  Anyway, it’s not broken, I did not wake up

Yeah...you seem clumsy, I'll throw in the protectives for free.

the next day with a black eye—which is great because I had two meetings that day where making a good first impression was important and the only thing I could think of when I opened my eyes in the morning was how was I going to out-finesse walking in like I came from a mugging.  Answer: HAHAHAHA there’s no answer to that, I would just be screwed.  It’s not like you can just tell people you walked into a glass wall, they won’t believe you because that doesn’t happen in real life.  Best case scenario, concerned women come up to me after the meeting to tell me he’s not worth it.  (“Andy” was very sweet and concerned about my general whole-ness and well-being, butandalso was concerned with my potential bruising in a slightly different way than had even occurred to me.)

Day two was more sore than day one.  Also the internet says I still might get some bruising, which would be awesome in advance of my niece’s fifth birthday party.

I can't think of a better way to meet all her little short friend’s parents.  “Yeah, I box and am clumsy, that’s def true because I totally wouldn’t tell you about my fight club, do you need a babysitter?”  My sister would super appreciate the great impression I will make on her peers, and my nieces will look at me with the awe that my role modeling deserves.

We should not overlook how much of a baby I am being about this.  I mean it’s sore, but it’s not killing me and it’s a localized pain.  And yet. 

I can't have nice things.