The Garden State of Euphoria: nourishing our world

So I'm just going to cut straight to the chase: I totally saw a grown man pick his nose and eat it in Jersey City last week.

A grown man.

In a suit.

Driving the latest model of nice car.

He picked his nose. And he ate it.

Friends, the bar was raised last week; that is, the bar of grossness. I mean, a grown man picking his nose is disgusting enough, but I'm willing to give a man the benefit of the doubt realizing that every now and again that nose just needs to be picked. Sometimes it just begs for it. But eating the harvest? That's for kids. Really anyone beyond the age of 3 or 4 (Ill even stretch it to 5) has no business browsing the booger buffet.

I was doing some work for former candidate in Jersey City last week and as I made my way from my car to the office, a car pulled out a little ahead of me from an underground parking garage and stopped midway across the sidewalk to wait for oncoming traffic to clear before pulling out onto the road. I didn't pay much attention until I looked up and realized that the man was picking his nose. I looked away quickly, chuckling to myself but then did a double-take to clarify whether it was an actual pick or just a little scratch.

We all see people picking their noses in their cars, right? I feel like it's an activity that many individuals take part in under the strange assumption that, despite being completely surrounded by glass, no one can see them. It's gross, but it's also kind of funny to pull up beside a Mercedes Benz at a traffic light and to look over and catch the driver sort of digging away, wrist deep in his cranium and completely oblivious to the fact that I, along with roughly six other people, have seen him in all his glory behaving like my two year old nephew, Cheech. Regardless, I always double-check just to be sure: pick or scratch? Was it an actual picking of the nose? Was the person really digging for gold, or was it just a good, well-needed scratch? There is a difference, and I realize this as I myself have been in need of a good scratching every now and again. Heck, sometimes other people feel the need to scratch my nose for me (for whatever reason), and yes sometimes this scratching goes on while Im driving in my car, surrounded by windows and passing through traffic and thousands of would-be bloggers who will eventually write about seeing me pick my nose on the New Jersey Turnpike...

I digress.

So I did a double-take to be sure. Was this a pick or a scratch?

I took a moment to decide and just as a huge grin stretched across my face in realization of having a full-fledged picker on my hands his hand reached right down from his nostril to his mouth.

Nostril to mouth and that mouth was wrapped solidly around that finger; around that little mucus-y monster.

I immediately looked away from both embarrassment and disbelief. I think my mouth was actually, as they say, completely agape. I nearly lost my balance and teetered for a moment as I tried to regain it.

And then I laughed. I laughed and I thought about how I was going to blog about this later.

By the way, it's really, really important to me to share the most critical events in my life with all of you. I hope you know that.

And further highlighting my day is me forgetting to pull up the zipper on my jeans twice that afternoon after visiting the restroom. Yep, that's right: twice in a row I left my zipper all the way down. And I realize that this is something that happens to everyone every now and again, but twice in one day seems a bit much. This is one of the most embarrassing things that can happen to someone because while it is so obvious to everyone else, the victim remains completely aloof and unaware, going about his daily ritual and looking like a complete fool.

Here I am: making copies, sending a fax, talking to the auditor and discussing financial statements with him all with a gaping hole in and about my crotch area. I might as well have had "I pick my nose and eat it" tattooed on my forehead heralding to the entire planet my supreme idiocy.

But I will now stop talking about humiliating experiences such as nose picking or unzipped zippers. Instead, I will say that Friday night's fundraiser went swimmingly. And I will also say how grateful I am to everyone who came out and made it a successful evening.

Together, we were able to raise a smidge under $2000 (which may not sound like a lot, but for a bunch of poor and underappreciated, young individuals to come together in a small space such as Maxwell's... well, it's a lot) and give out cool prizes like a 30,000 GB iPod (in the immortal words of John Bonaventura) and free passes to Great Adventure (that's Six Flags, for all you non-Jersey Neanderthals).

Thank you. You're all amazing people.

And now, I leave you with a little moment of zen from the evening:

Pilar * Becky * Moe
2006