The Fountainhead. No, Really.

So there I was, standing in the shower this morning, and I got a little bit of soap just under one of my nostrils. I must have inhaled or something, because the next thing I know, I've got that slight burning sensation that tells me I've accidentally huffed some soap. This is no fun at all, I'm sure it happens to everyone, so you know what I'm talking about.

Well, usually when something like that happens, I just kind of ignore it and try not to breathe in through that particular nostril for awhile, to avoid fouling my spark plugs. But this morning for some reason which escapes me at the moment, I thought that maybe if I angled the shower head up just a trifle, I could dislodge the soap from just inside the rim of my nostril, where it was stinging me.

OK, I'm going to put that one down as a generally bad idea. See, what I found out is that the human head will fill up with water in about 1/10 of a second, which is not really a lot of time when you're shooting water right up one nostril at a high rate of speed and watching it shoot right back out your mouth like some kind of bizarre fountain, er, water feature I think they call it these days. Yes, I filled the inside of my head up like an evil piñata. If I could have seen myself in the mirror, I probably looked like one of those toys you squeeze and the toy's eyes pop out. It felt pretty amazing having water shoot out of my mouth like a dang water hose, is what.

Have you ever gone swimming and gotten water in your ears? Well, imagine that when the water is on the other side of your eardrum, trying to get out. Wowzer.

So, I get out of the shower and I yell to Mrs. Wiggy, "Hey hon? Guess what I just figured out?"

She sticks her head in the bathroom with one of those resigned smiles on her face like she gets when I make her pull my finger, and she replies, "Do you know what you sound like when you say that? It reminds me of the Redneck's Famous Last Words, 'Hey, y'all, watch this.'"

Now, she is only saying this because it happens to be true. I figure things out about myself all the time. This is a Guy Thing (tm). See, you may have seen on some educational television program about some Swami or Guru who managed, after years of meditation, to control his heart rate or lower his blood pressure, or levitate, or figure out his taxes without getting mad, something that would otherwise be impossible. You might have figured that was pretty amazing stuff.

But in truth, guys do that kind of stuff all the time. Only most of us are not very interested in learning to control our heartrate. Our bodily functions and noises, on the other hand - well worth the effort.

For example, in my well-spent youth, I learned to raise and lower my eyebrows independently of each other. I can still waggle one eyebrow while the other stays perfectly level, or make one go up and the other go down, etc. This is hours of fun when I'm home amusing the dogs. Mrs. Wiggy is not surprised at all when she calls downstairs and says "What are you doing?" and I reply, "Making faces at the dogs." She knows that is literally what I'm doing.

I can also flare my nostrils as long as I am not laughing at the time, which is not always that easy to do, since I can flare mine so quickly it looks like my nose is fluttering in the breeze like a sick little pair of flags. Mrs. Wiggy is not fond of that stunt.

I have been working for years on the art of making my internal organs produce noises. Not gaseous noises, anyone can do that. I mean making them move around in there, maybe produce a flapping sound or a sproing kinda thing. For awhile, I claimed that I had broken my flapper by sucking air out of an empty coke bottle and holding my tongue over the end of it and waving it about, attached to my tongue just by suction alone. I have also claimed some dominion over my spleen, which is the name I give to anything that is inside of me and which I have never seen.

A word of advice: If your mother-in-law comes to live with you, and she discovers you chasing your shrieking wife (her daughter) through the house while wearing a towel, and she asks you what in God's Name you are doing, do not reply "Hot spleenal love, mommie pie." This does not play well in small towns. A little tip from your Uncle Wiggy.

So anyhow, another day, another lesson in what not to do to your nose.

I like to think I'll never stop learning, and this morning, the shower was my classroom.

Keep Yer Stick on the Ice,

Wiggy