Confession #2

I walked up to the front of the room. As I laid down my paper on Mr. Bouret's desk, a booger fell out of my nose and landed on my paper.

I froze up, couldn't think of the proper response. I looked at Mr. Bouret, who had seen the booger fall. Then I looked at the paper. Then I walked back to my chair, leaving my paper and my booger sitting on his desk. It was my senior year of high school, and from that day on, I swore that never again would a booger fall out of my nose in front of someone.

It was a dry booger. Those things happen in Tucson. I began checking my nose daily. If I was in public, I would test the waters with my pinky finger, the image of Mr. Bouret's blank stare imbedded in my memory.

By my senior year of college, the advent of nose hair had turned me into an avid nose picker. I'd given it up in the golden years of my youth, yet as a young adult I found myself back in the saddle again, with a vengeance.

A couple summers ago I was in a relationship with a girl, yet I still kept picking my nose. I would tell myself that I was doing it on the sly, that her peripheral vision was pathetic, that she was incompetent of learning my secret. In retrospect, I know I was just lying to myself. She knew. Oh, she knew.

I want to quit, but I'm scared. The threat of random nasal droppings have me backed into a corner, reminding me that if I don't pick my nose several times a day, I will have another such moment like the one with Mr. Bouret. In my mind's eye, my paper still sits on his desk, my dried up snot about as noticeable as a zit on the lip, as elegant as an audible fart in a crowded elevator.