As a sickly child turned sickly grown-up, I learned to deal
with my ailments from itchy rashes, continuous colds, and nosebleeds with nary
a regard to decency. By this I
mean, I theorized that if I acted like it was normal, than everyone would stop
freaking out around me.
Take for example, my recent nosebleed at work. Granted, working at a consignment shop
with gently used items while being allergic to dust may not seem the best way
to avoid an ailment—contact with my skin results in rashes, contact with my
nose results in nose blood loss—I can usually stand it with the help of
medication and Kanye’s words of wisdom that what doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger. That or I just choose to
live a little dangerously. Next,
you know, I’ll be dancing in the middle of the street with an ice cream in my
back pocket, two blue laws of my small hometown. For now, I’ll just risk nosebleeds at work.
All of us at the store have gotten used to it, so we’re
pretty prepared when it happens, like my bag of cotton I keep hidden near the
register for these purposes, and the weary, yet concerned call from my
coworkers as I rush to the restroom “again?”
I stopped being embarrassed at having a cotton ball stuck up
my nose as I ring people out, and a lot of customers will twitter
sympathetically, knowingly, as I fold up their items and hand their credit
cards back. I don’t think anyone’s
disgusted at least.
I also get some sort of fun out of surprising people when I
turn around to greet them, sort of like I’m testing their character. When I hear a familiar voice of a
regular come in, I wait a few moments, then bam! Surprise! It's Georgette with a cotton ball up her nostril! “Good morning!”
“Good—” Face
falls. I go about my
business. “—morning?”
These people will either avoid eye contact with me later or
just avoid me in general.
“Good—haha. What are
you doing? Are you okay?”
No, I have a cotton ball up my nose because I’m trying to be
the new Nelly, except with cotton.
I love that response.
Why, yes this is a good nosebleed, thank you.
Sometimes, I’m tempted to tell people that I just got in a
major fight over my honor or saved my sisters from wolves in the forest. Then I think about how much detailing I’d
have to come up with, and how I’d have to tell my sisters so they would be
prepared in case anyone ever asks them.
I have gone to the doctor for this actually. I’ve been to two, just because the
first one never really saw anything wrong with me, and I began to get fed up
with this ordeal. Allergies or heat or what have you causes them. In high school,
I remember being teased for picking my nose too much. I'd like to smash those rumors right now.
One of the major ones happened during a test for The Great Gatsby, and after I turned in
my scantron and essay, I felt it happen.
I tried to remain calm. I
grabbed the toilet paper roll—we were well into the school year, so those nice
Kleenex boxes were long gone by now—and tilted my head back to wait it out.
Only, I noticed that people have a lot of say in how you
should handle a nosebleed. One
girl, finished with her test, told me that I should lean forward, lest I choke on
my own blood. Another told me that I needed to create a clot to staunch the blood flow. My teacher was the
one to tell me to go to the restroom.
I had already graduated from the entire roll of tissue paper and was now
onto the industrial packs of brown paper towels.
I made my way to the restroom a little daintily, holding my
head up, then pulling my chin down because I really didn’t know the risk of
choking on my own blood, but I also wanted this ordeal to be done. So I head
bobbed down the hall and into the restroom, where the amount of blood scared a
girl talking on her phone in front of the mirrors, and I leaned against the wall with no real
plan than to deal with this shame in privacy.
Then of course, the sirens started.
I’m not sure if a lot of schools had code reds, but at my
high school, this particular siren meant a practice against a terrorist attack.
We only just started having them, and I really forgot about the planned
practice drill the principal mentioned on the announcements that morning. Half of me couldn’t decide if I should
go back or just stay where I was.
My nose was worst, and I didn’t want to face my classroom again. With a test done, there's really nothing interesting to do than stare at the girl with a wad of tissues in front her face, standing over the trashcan.
A girl sauntered in, cool as a cucumber, ignoring the
flashing lights. She gave me a
lazy once over before looking at herself in the mirror. “An ally!” I thought, settling into the
wait, but she really just came in to brush her hair, check out her derrière,
give me another sad once over, and left.
So much for sisters before terrorist attack drills.
I stayed put for a few moments, weighing the pros and cons,
as the sirens continued. The
principal came on to remind us that this was a drill and advised the teachers
to close their doors to anyone in the hallway.
Out of confusion or maybe out of just nowhere to sit, I made
my way back to my classroom, only to run into my teacher in the hallway. She looked stern, then relieved,
ushering me quickly into the room.
“Now,” she said with a huff.
“Boys and girls, when the sirens come on, please come back to the
classroom.” She looked at me
pointedly. I stood by the
trashcan, holding a wad of papers over my nose.
“But it’s only a drill,” I argued meekly. It sounded more "Bub, ibs only a dwill."
“Even so,” she replied, walking back to her desk.
The nosebleed wouldn’t stop after that. I had to go to the nurse’s office,
where I sat near the door with an ice pack on my nose, feeling very much like
Ramona after she smashed an egg into her hair. I saw lots of girls I knew come in for lady products
though. Many of them eyed me
suspiciously, probably because lady products are secrets, and others asked how I was doing. I remember Karen came in with that excuse to see me. She gave me a few words of
encouragement, before rushing back to AP U.S. history to tell people I knew that I was alive and not dried up.
Weirdly enough, I can remember recall specific times when my
nosebleeds really counted.
My first Facebook status was about “severe noseblood loss,”
resulting in this long Facebook correspondence from a friend who moved the year
before. In retrospect, it was
rather sweet of him. We hadn’t
spoken for a year, an age in teenage time, so he wrote to say that he hoped I
recovered from my blood loss, adding a smug line at the end that sounded
something like “you thought you heard the last of me when we said bye to each
other at the school buses.” It was a nod to how we met, really. We used to walk together to the school buses at the end of the day, that is, until, my friend started making me wait for her, so I would wave him off, tell him not to wait, and I'd go with a sister. Sisters before other walking partners, I suppose.
I honestly
didn’t read into the sentimentality of that line until years later, when I
reread through it and found things like “Who did you end up going with to the
homecoming dance? Find anyone to
dance with?” or "What are you doing this weekend? We should meet up?" Oh teenage, Georgette, you and your willful ignorance.
When I was seven, we went on a family vacation back to New
Jersey to see my cousins. It was
one of those unbearable summers, unbearable also because I wasn’t used to a
lack of central air conditioning, and I remember hearing the ice cream man out
on the street, my dad calling me from the cement stoop outside. He’s sentimental too, my dad. He thought I’d like to go buy a treat
like my sisters used to, so he gave me five dollars, and I meekly went up to
the burly ice cream man, who wouldn’t look down at me at all, and asked for one
of those Mario ice creams with the gum ball noses. I saw that it was two dollars.
The burly man gave me the ice cream and took my five
dollars. I waited for change,
holding the popsicle stick in my hand, but he kept avoiding my eyes, looking
ahead at, well, nothing. There
wasn’t anyone behind me or anyone on the street. I stayed
there a second longer, before clearing my throat, readying myself to demand my
father’s cash, when he looked down at me, and scowled. What did I want, he demanded, and my
eyes watered up immediately. I ran back to our stoop, past my dad, who was
asking for change. Out of either
nerves or instinct (for sympathy) my nose started to bleed, and my mom took my
ice cream and put it in the fridge and made me sit in front of fan with an ice
pack until I calmed down.
As I sat in that chair with a cold face and a pack of paper towels, seven-year-old me avowed to never let anyone take advantage
of me like that again.
Sitting in the Philippines one summer after I read about
Laurie in Little Women, before my
first phone interview with my social media job, during my first full weekend shift as a gift wrapper, and even before I went to see a movie with my friend
Lauren and Sam, nosebleeds are just a way of life with me. I have
honestly gotten so used to it, that when it happens, I’ll just take a cotton
ball out of my purse and stick it up a nostril, no preamble or apology.
I had one in while working, surprising one of my favorite
regulars today. “Morning,” I greeted with a cotton up my left nostril. Shay
stopped to look at me. She gave a
light laugh. “What’s wrong with
you?” she asked. She didn't sound offensive or teasing.
I continued to hang up clothes. “Nosebleed.” She nodded along, understanding, and I
continued, throwing my fist into the air, “But I will not let that stop me from
succeeding, Shay!”
Shay’s face broke into a wide smile. “More power to you girl!” she called
out across the store. And I continued to ring people out and put up clothes, until, inevitably, I could throw that cotton away.