On The Road With a Nasal-Bone Mutant

"When we get these thruways across the whole country… it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing. ..." Or, so said John Steinbeck in his book, "Travels With Charley." I, then, (if he were not comfortably interred in California) would invite Mr. Steinbeck to satiate his desire for on-the-road observations by accompanying me on my daily commute.

My life began with a commute. My mother went into labor on a Sunday morning while my father was entrenched in his four-egg omelette and Bugs Bunny. He asked if it was possible for her (or really, for I) to wait until Bugs was over to leave for the hospital, which was 45 minutes away. Undoubtedly, her actual response didn't make it into my baby book, but the jest of it was, "No sweetheart, I hate to interrupt your breakfast and Sunday cartoons, but it would be most prudent to leave now because my contractions are increasingly close and I would be exceedingly grateful to deliver your child in the comfort of a hospital rather than in the pickup truck on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation along Interstate-86." So began my life, and for its duration the places I need to go on a daily basis have never gotten any closer to where I sleep at night. In fact, for the first two years here (when I couldn't yet work in Canada), I drove an hour and a half each way to New York State every day. These commutes have not been entirely enjoyable, but they've provided some interesting observations. I thought I’d share one.

Kari's Life:  Enter The Nose Picker. I do not mean the people-who-pick-their-nose-in-the-car-because-they-envision-themselves-in-a-bubble-of-invisibility. There are plenty of those out there, but I'm referring to THE Nose Picker of all nose pickers in the orange Nova. I first encountered him just after exiting onto Highway 416 from the Queensway. It was with light traffic at 6:00 a.m. that I changed lanes to pass the Nova. The driver was a shaggy looking man, but that was not alarming. What WAS alarming is that it only took a half-glance to destroy my life-long fallacy that human nasal bones are designed in such a way to make it impossible for your entire finger to fit inside the thing.  Nose Picker’s pinky was completely buried in his right nostril and he was twisting it to boot! I thought at first that perhaps he had lost his little finger in the war and just does this to freak out people who are passing him on the Highway. But with the slimy withdrawl it was confirmed that he was not a disabled veteran, but some nasal-bone mutant. I didn’t observe where he deposited the yield from his dig, but I did notice that he had to shake his head like wet dog a couple of times to put himself right again. I was still perplexed forty minutes later as I sat in line to cross the border when I saw the orange hood of the Nova slide up behind me. I stared despite myself as he got out of the car, turned sideways, placed his thumb and forefinger on the bridge of his nose and blew with all his might! Then, in a move no novice should attempt, he leaned forward ever so slightly, slid his grip down his nose, seized the dangling string of snot and flung it to the ground in one musical-conductor-like flip of his wrist! He then got back in his car, did the wet dog shake again and honked at me to move ahead. I moved ahead, but have never really been able to move on......not really.

I still commute to work about 45 minutes each way, every day. I rarely pick my nose.