I know that I am not the only person who does this.
Okay, so you know that moment when you can suddenly tell you're about to sneeze? You get that half tickle in your sinuses, your eyes sort of water and you make that really weird and unattractive 'about to sneeze' face. This is de rigueur for every person who has ever lived, right?
Anyways, that's not what this is about.
So, sometimes when I'm about to sneeze, I sort of get stuck in the 'about to sneeze' mode, and can't get out. It's a very frustrating and unsatisfying state. Your body was wanting to sneeze for a reason; that it didn't leaves you unbalanced. Not to mention you're stuck with this really creepy look on your face.
When it is me, in these occasions I just turn and look into the nearest light source. Because I am incredibly sensitive to bright lights, looking into one is almost always enough to push me over the edge into the sneeze. (As I've said before, I think this is a trait that is drawn from my computer science degree - as soon as you are certified in computers, your body begins the process of rejecting all natural light.) It's just how I'm trained at this point - can't sneeze, look at a light.
Okay, so that makes sense, right? I mean, other people have to do this too, it's not that weird. Yeah, go with that.
Today at work I was standing in the lobby talking to a client when the urge to sneeze overwhelms. I hold up a finger in the universal sign of "hold up, I'm about to sneeze" and turn away. The sneeze doesn't come, and I am stuck in unattractive mode, so I turn more and angle my face to where it's under the nearest wall sconce lamp shade. This allows me to look at the bulb, which in turn allows me a very satisfying sneeze.
I turn back to the client, and am met with a horde of astonished stares. Not only is the client looking at me funny, so is the receptionist, the UPS guy, two randoms who are just in the lobby, and the floor manager (who already thinks I'm insane based on previous experiences).
Now, okay, maybe it looked a little odd, how I turned away to find a light to look into. And yes, it might have been compounded by the fact that I had to take a couple of steps to find a light I could reach. And yeah, I might have been in mid-sentence, so the holding up of a finger may have been interpreted as "hold on for a second, I need to go stare into a naked light bulb."
But.
BUT!
I really needed to sneeze! And I told them to hold on for a second! With my finger!
Whatever! It's not weird!
No one understands my pain.
4 comments:
*sympathetically*
.. no one? I understand more than you'll ever know ..
But for me, it's the sun. Can you imagine living on the sun? And coming back down to earth? "How was the sun?" Oh, it's a regular sneeze factory up there. "I never would have guessed." Aaaaannd that's why they let me on the sun and not you.
I understand your pain. :) I did this very thing several times last night in my drawing class, for probably almost a full painful minute each time. People around me were waiting tentatively...
"Was that a sneeze?"
[miserable] "No..."
A psychology professor once told me that light makes us sneeze because your sneeze neurons are by your light-sensing neurons, and the neurons are misfiring. Or something like that. Sounds good to me.
I completely understand the “look at the light" concept. I too have to perform the ritual in order to better accomplish the act of sneezing. You’re not crazy.
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