neti entertain you

I overheard someone in the break room talking about neti pots, and I shuddered involuntarily as I remembered a horrific incident from my past.

See, when I lived in Crackwood, I had horrible allergies...no doubt due to the mold on the bathroom ceiling and meth residue in the carpets from the previous tenants. My friend Chuck, a crunchy-granola type, recommended that I get a neti pot, which is a tiny ceramic pot with a long spout. You fill it with warm saltwater, tip your head back, and pour the liquid into your nose. "I swear to god, you'll feel a hundred times better!" he insisted.

So I went to a local health food store and purchased a neti pot, and then, being a big fan of irony, I got a hamburger kiddie meal from Carl's Jr. After I got home, I ate and then decided it was time to try out my new toy. I filled it with warm saltwater as instructed, and toddled to the bathroom sink to try it out. Tilting my head to the right like the RCA dog, I gently inserted the spout into my left nostril and began pouring. Instantly, water began streaming out of my right nostril into the sink. The sensation was not unlike snorting a snoutful of sea water. I coughed a couple of times and then tilted my head to the left to repeat the process.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of looking in the mirror and saw myself in pajamas and mismatched hair clips, with my head tilted to the side and water gushing from my nose. I began laughing, which caused the saltwater to start going down my gullet.

This led to choking.

Choking led to swallowing saltwater.

Swallowing saltwater led to vomiting profusely…and let me tell you, if there’s anything that tastes AND smells worse than a regurgitated Carl’s Jr. Happy Star hamburger with extra pickles, french fries, a Coke, and about five gallons of snot-filtered saltwater, I really, really, REALLY don’t want to know what it is.

But did it work? Well, I didn’t notice any difference last night, and this morning, I actually seemed stuffier than usual. But to my perverse fascination, when I blew my nose, a small, hard, brown clump of some unidentifiable substance popped out. I don’t know if it was a clot of pollen and allergens that had bonded together like some nasty pearl, or petrified boogers; for all I know, it was a piece of last night’s hamburger.

Again, I really, really, REALLY don’t want to know.

Really.