TIDBITS 10/25/09
Benjamin Mark
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The Nose Knows
It is said that a mother who pulls hairs out of her child's nose each
day will assure him of a happy life. Personally ... I beg to differ.
Let us assume this child is of a child's age ... ten years old
perhaps. Question number one: What kind of kid is this that has nose
hairs dangling like so many tendrils from his nostrils with such
profusion that they need pulling? And question number two: Isn't it an
absolute no no to "pull" hairs from one's nose? The pain would be
excruciating and would surely bring more tears to the child's eyes
than a passel of onions. This is not happiness. This is abject misery.
Not that I want to argue with lore.
Bloody noses are held to be, generally speaking, bad omens. Wow. Will
the revelations never end? There is of course an exception which I
feel I need to share. It is this: If--from the left nostril--only a
single drop of blood should fall ... then the recipient of said bloody
nose shall come in to a great deal of money. Okay Charlie ... when I
say go ... sock me one ... gently ... on the left side. If this works
you get ten percent of the take. The rest is bloody well mine. Oh ...
the pun of it all.
One of the cures for nosebleed was to eat pigeon droppings. Now here's
the thing of it. If I had the choice of eating pigeon dropping and
curing my bloody nose or not eating pigeon dropping and bleed from my
left nostril till the rivers of the world turned red ... which do you
think I'd choose? I'll give you a hint. Cover your carpets with red
sheets. I'm on my way over. And as to the pigeon dropping ... well ...
I suggest you place them gently thence from whence they came.
There is another cure ... far far more palatable. One simply has to
apply moss taken from a dead man's skull letting it barely touch the
skin. Ahh. Now isn't that better?
All of which brings us ... by way of insanely clever segue ... to nose
ornaments. They have been around for centuries. They have been worn by
both men and women mostly in India and America before the coming of
Christopher Columbus in 1492. I presume we then civilized the savages
and took the ornaments out of their noses and placed them in more
suitable places ... like the ears ... and the lips ... and the belly
buttons ... and even other places propriety prohibits me from
mentioning.
Suffice it to say I have a 19th century nose ring. It contains a
graduated series of rose-cut diamonds and a fringe of alternating
rubies and pearls. Estimated value:
$3600.00.
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits...may I
direct you to my home page at http://www.tyler-adam.com where you will
scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says
Current Tidbits ... and you will see represented on our pages a nose
ring to be envied by the most discriminating connoisseur.
And there ya have it.
That's it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark
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