Because it’s summer for Sean now, my Mom comes over and gets me out of bed. It takes me a moment to wake up and for my body to warm up so my Mom helps me to get my ginger water and garlic tea ready before I put my contacts in. So here I am, sitting at the table drinking my garlic tea and ginger water trying to wake up so I have to blow my nose a million times!
The other day, my Mom said to me, “You kids!” as I blew my nose. She said this because my siblings and I all blow our nose quite loudly! That would be OK but I am the ONLY girl! So yeah, my nose blowing is super loud! Sean had to be five or six and we lived in our second apartment when he asked me one day if I was the only one who knew how to play a Kleenex. I laughed and told him that I thought uncle Jimmy could too. In fact, all of my brothers can! We all blow our noses pretty loudly!
But again, I am the ONLY girl! It’s NOT cute! When I taught, I used to have a Kleenex raffle in the beginning of the school year for Kleenex boxes. Every student who brought in a Kleenex box got one raffle ticket they would write their name on. After a few weeks, I would ask the students what they would like to win in this raffle. Most of the time, it was a big bag of Hot Cheetos.
I would raffle off a bag of Hot Cheetos and my class would use these Kleenex boxes until we ran out. Once that happened, I would get a roll of toilet paper from the staff bathroom and put it on my desk. I would tell my students that if they are not proud, they can use this to blow their nose!
In the beginning of the year, I would warn my students that my nose blowing was loud. I would tell them that, “I blow my nose pretty loudly, NOT that I am embarrassed but I’m just letting you know. I gotta take care of biness!”
ALL Of my former colleagues knew that I blew my nose pretty loudly! After my Mom commented about my nose blowing, I let her know that, “ I gotta take care of biness!”