fill in the blank

See if you can complete this entirely true statement: Today I had the snot ______d out of me.

Stumped? The word you are looking for, friends, is "massage".

Still confused? It's pretty simple, really. Gross, but simple.

I had a massage today. Student Health Services on campus makes this available at a very reasonable price. $25 for half an hour, seventh massage is free. It's very cool, especially now that I have discovered which therapist will not leave me in agony for days afterwards. But I digress.

For almost three weeks I've had a nasty summer cold, complete with copious nasal discharge in varying shades of yellow. Truly disgusting. I've gone through three boxes of tissues between home and office. Every time I think it has to be winding down, it revs up again. Like today.

So there I am, face down on the table, my head resting on the donut thingy (with disposable cover - that's important), massage finished. I'd been having a little trouble breathing through my nose, but after nearly three weeks of this damn cold, it was hardly a new development. Given Chewy and Oliver woke me up at 4:30am today, I was concerned about falling asleep and drooling through the donut onto the floor. Little did I know....

I got up from the table and discovered a huge wad of snot had exited my nose and was hanging out above my upper lip. Had to have been the size of a small stack of quarters. Dis-gusting. But at least it didn't land on the floor. Not even a smidgen on the cover of the donut thingy, and I gave it a very thorough inspection. The massage therapist, fortunately, has no idea what she's capable of. And I think we can all agree it's a good thing there is no photographic evidence, on oh so many levels.