This morning, I was giving my face a quality scrubbing in the shower. My preferred technique for face washing is to wrap the soapy washcloth around a finger or two and hit the important spots... you know, forehead, cheeks, chin and neck. Today, however, I took the entire soapy washcloth and slapped it evenly over the entire surface of my face so that I could scub every nook and cranny.

It seems that I caught one nook too many.

Or was it a cranny? Anyhow...

Soap somehow managed to find its way into my left nostril. For those of you at home that have never experienced such an event... Allow me to say that it's quite uncomfortable -- painful, even.

I'm proud to say the burning sensation that was enveloping my nostril didn't keep me from thinking on my feet. I immediately began attempts to rid my nasal oriface of this foreign substance. The first course of action was to blow. And blow. And blow some more.

The blowing wasn't helping much, so I had to take a more taboo approach -- I used the finger. Of course, while the finger was able to remove some of the soap near the outer edges of the nostril, it did its part to push the rest of the soap closer to my brain.

My beige bar of SafeGuard obviously had an affect on my brain as I then thought it to be a good idea to flush the nostril with water. In reality, that *was* a good idea... The problem was that there was no good way to execute it. Standing on my head was out of the question, so I tried to scoop water with my hands and sort of throw it up my nose. I imagine my technique was much more entertaining to watch than it was effective (although I had no audience to entertain, thank God).

I finally saw the futility of it all and finished with the shower. The first part of my day was spent with one-half of a runny nose. The rest of the day was spent with an itchy left nostril and quite a bit of sneezing. Even now... with many hours having passed since the unfortunate incident, I find myself forced to itch my nose every 10 minutes or so.

Take my advice, kids. Soap isn't for you. Sure, your friends might be doing it... And the kids on the playground say it's all fun and games... But the fact of the matter is that it hurts and burns and for a really long time, too.

Just say no to soap in the nose.

* * * * * *

Oh, how I wish there was a point to this story. Of course, they've made Lifetime movies with less of a plot, so maybe there's hope for me yet. An After School Special about the dangers of soap, perhaps?