Within minutes of arising I got the sensation in my nose of inhaling a bug. It is winter weather come early to Pittsburgh, causing windows to be shut tight and furnaces to run in October. Sure, a summer bug could have survived 2 nights of the freeze, seeking refuge in the warmth, and then been annihilated by a mere sniff. It seems unlikely as I see them dancing their annoyingly unsmackable rhythm in front of my eyes first, as a rule. That YOU-WILL-SNEEZE-NOW tickle is what I got first thing this morning, regardless of why.

And then I sneezed 100,000 times in a row. Yes, I wrote that. You weren’t here, you didn’t count them. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND SNEEZES. It was awful. They were so forceful the hubster side-eyed me with fear, thinking I might sneeze up some innards, and nobody wants to clean that up.

I blew my nose 23,000 times. Yes, twenty-three thousand times; yes, I counted. Prove I didn’t. An hour and a half later it was safe to walk more than 5 feet from the Kleenex box. For a minute I wondered if I was getting a cold. Colds start further back IIRC, and I may not recall correctly. Memories of how colds start are not as easy as counting to 100,000.

Regardless, real or not, that gnat is dead.

Ah Sundays – the day where you can so thoroughly contemplate the complex doings of your left nostril and it is okay.