The Nose Picker

My grandfather was a nose picker and so was my father. Most of my memories of both my father and my grandfather is of them picking their noses. My grandfather used to roll his boogers up in to small balls and flick them across the room. My father would continually pick his nose while talking on the phone, reading the newspaper, having a conversation or while watching television. As a child I would watch him pick his nose and swear that I would never be like that. I imagined how repulsed my mother must of been while watching her sexual mate go fishing into his swollen nostrils. The other day when my girlfriend said to me, “you are such a nose picker,” you can image the degree of shame and disappointment that I felt upon realizing that I had become the kind of man I swore that I would never be.

You know that saying that the fruit does not fall far from the tree? Well, the entire theory of genetic inheritance is based upon the idea that we acquire many of the same biological and character traits as our parents. Shit. I thought that I could somehow out run this reality. I spent the majority of my teenage years and my adult life working hard at being nothing like my grandfather and father. I spent hundreds of hours in therapy, read hundreds of books that I hoped would implant into my brain a thought process that was antithetical to the ideas of my father. I constructed my entire life out of using my father as a model of what not to be in this world. I have even spent hours looking at myself in the mirror trying to make sure that my facial expressions and my posture looked nothing like his. But I realize that when there are cracks things slip through- and I have a lot of cracks so it was destined to happen someway, sometime. For years I have been a chronic nose picker. What scares me most is that nose picking is so deep in my DNA that most of the time I am unaware of the fact that I am indeed picking my nose.

However, with all of this said, I recognize that having a genetic predisposition to nose picking is not entirely to blame for my chronic nose picking habits. I blame a lot of my nose picking on environmental conditions and stress/anxiety. I realize that I live in a dirty world. The air is dirty and so are most other things that I come into contact with on a daily basis. Dirty, dirty, dirty. Also I do have a rather large Jewish nose, which makes it easier for the snot to get in and collect. Nose picking is not just some mindless act that I am doing because my father and grandfather conditioned the act into my mind. I pick my nose to clean out the pipes, to relieve the pressure that the booger build up creates. I pick my nose for the same reasons that a person sweeps dust off of the kitchen floor or scrubs grime and grease off of the kitchen sink or bathtub- I want to keep things clean.

I have recently also realized that I pick my nose to distract myself from symptoms of anxiety that I am feeling. Nose picking takes my mind off of whatever anxious thoughts that I am having. I preoccupy myself with my finger in my nose. Nose picking allows me to become grounded in the present moment and to distract myself from the fear of impending doom which often causes my body to go into fight or flight mode. I have learned to use the act of nose picking as a kind of ant-anxiety medication. Having my finger in my nose calms my mind, rolling my boogers into nice rounded balls gives me something to do other than worry. Nose picking gives me much needed relief.

I have found that one of the more difficult things about growing older is coming to terms with who I really am (behind the chronic day dreams). Having to make peace with the fact that I too pick my nose when driving, watching television, reading and having a conversation has not been an easy undertaking (the other evening my girlfriend caught me picking my nose while having sex with her. I am so concerned and bothered that I did this without any awareness that I do not want to discuss it any further here. I mean when else am I picking my nose and unaware? What if I do it while working with clients? Or while in other public places? Very concerning.). I am trying to accept that when it comes to nose picking my fruit does not fall far from my father and grandfathers tree. I know that I need to do something about this ailment because I am starting to find boogers lying around the house. This feels very unsanitary. Plus my girlfriend is starting to become concerned about my habit. She bought me a Neti pot, which is supposed to help with cleaning the sludge out from my nasal passages but I am uncomfortable running salt water up my nose. Makes me feel like I am drowning. I do confess to enjoying the act of nose picking. It is a simple pleasure and I need all the simple pleasures that I can get. However, I realize that it is a simple pleasure that has gone a bit too far. If some day I ever end up having a son or a daughter, nose picking is not a disorder that I want to pass onto him or her. So I realize that it is of utmost importance that I break this negative and often disturbing family cycle now. I just picked my nose as I wrote that. Shit.

Off The Bottle

1.

The waitress approached me and said, “sir- everyone is staring at you.” She had a look of concern on her face and for a few seconds I had no idea what she was talking about. She then looked down at my chin and it was at that moment that I realized I was sucking on a bottle. I took the bottle out from my mouth, thanked the waitress for her concern and then looked around the restaurant at all the eyes that were focused directly on me. The eyes were of all different sizes, some round others more triangular. They all seemed to be saying “how could a grown man suck on a bottle like that in a public place? You should be ashamed.” I understood their condemnation. It must of been unnerving for their eyes to see me, a grown man, sucking on a bottle. I nodded my head in acknowledgment of their contempt and then I stared at the empty beer bottle sitting on my table.

 

2.

Sucking on bottles has become a real problem in my life. Last week I was almost fired from my job as a bartender because I was sucking on a wine bottle while working behind a busy bar. I suck on bottles unconciously and I am usually the last person to find out tha there is a bottle in my mouth. Until the waitress pointed out to me that I was sucking on an empty beer bottle I was in a no man’s land of empty, spaced out thought. I was like an infant suckling on his mother’s nipple- blissed out, content and without a worry in the world.

When I was a year old I refused to give up my bottle. At an age where most of my peers were moving on from the bottle I still wanted to keep mine in my mouth. Whenever it was not there, I would let out a rattling cry disturbing enough to worry the neighbors. My parents kept the bottle in my mouth well beyond my sixth birthday simply because they could not find a better solution for my developmental flaw. They assumed incorrectly that eventually I would outgrow my bottle fixation in the same way that  outgrew my obsession with pulling my pants down in public.

I have seen various specialists and therapists for what came to be called my “regressive suckling attachment fixation.” In seventh grade I worked with a particular specialist who had my parents tape my mouth shut for three hours after dinner- every night for one month. If I took the tape off more than three times in one month I would not be given the reward that I was promised- a puppy. For three hours a night I would watch television or read with my mouth taped shut because my parents deeply believed that the specialist’s theory could solve my bottle fixation. His theory was that by spending three hours every night without a bottle in my mouth the attachment fixation would be broken. The bottle and I would get bored of each other and grow apart. The first few days after the end of the month the specialist’s theory worked. I was no longer interested in keeping a bottle in my mouth all the time. I remember one night watching television with my parents without the bottle in my mouth and my father said “thank goodness that shrink was right- my son is not going to be a cock sucker.” I believe it was the next day at lunch that I found an empty coke bottle and began sucking on it.

I am now almost forty years of age and I still have a bottle in my mouth most of the time. When I read, nap, go for a walk, watch television and meditate I enjoy a bottle in my mouth. My wife, who is agitated by my fixation, has tried to diffuse what she calls “my self-demeaning-negative-obsession” by forbidding me to suck on a bottle when I am in her presence. I try and respect her wishes but it is not easy. Often times when we are watching a movie or out to dinner my anxiety will act up and I will need to excuse myself and go into the bathroom and suck on a bottle for a few awhile.

 

3.

The waitress brought me my check and I paid with cash. She gave me a sympathetic smile that seemed to be reserved for those whom she pitied. I put on my jacket and looked once more around the restaurant. A few eyes still suspiciously fixated upon me. One older lady seemed to be deeply offended by what I had done and was indignantly shaking her head in disapproval of me. I felt the sting of paranoia as I wondered if it was safe for me to leave the restaurant alone. I stood up, took a deep breath and without caring if anyone saw what I was doing- I took the empty beer bottle off the table and stuck it under my coat. As I cautiously walked out the front door of the restaurant I could swear that I heard an older, raspy voice yell, “ain’t it time that your mama showed you how to get off the bottle!”