The Nose Hair Club

About a month ago, at my Aunt Jill's 50th birthday party, I was hanging out with with my ten-year-old cousin Steffani, and with Urp (aka The Darker Uma) (hi Urp), and we started talking about gross ten-year-old appropriate things (like burps, boogers, and boys) and Steffani confessed to me that she used to pick her nose and write the alphabet on her bedroom wall in snot ("one time I got all the way to the letter 'm'" she told me) (and she would kill me if she knew I told anyone about it) (and she would double kill me if she knew that I told all of my blog readers about it) (especially since one of my blog readers is most definitely going to be her mom) (Aunt Jill, please do not tell Steffani that I blogged this) and then I confessed to Steffani that I really enjoy plucking my nose hairs (which is completely true) (I love plucking my nose hairs) (there's just something about the act of it that I find so completely satisfying) (often I'll pluck my nose hairs when I'm stuck in traffic) (I don't know why, but that's usually when the nose hair plucking gets done) (wow, flashback, all of this talk about "plucking" just reminded me of an old tongue twister from when I was a kid: "I'm not the pheasant plucker I'm the pheasant plucker's son, I'm only plucking pheasants 'til the pheasant plucker comes") and my cousin Steffani thought that my stories about nose plucking were so hilarious that she asked me to show her how I plucked my nose hairs and I started plucking, and the more I plucked, the funnier she thought it was, and so I kept plucking and plucking and we were counting the nose hairs and the whole thing was kinda gross (I know Urp was disgusted with us) but it was kinda fun too, and definitely a great way to bond with your ten-year-old cousin.

We even started a "club." It's called The Nose Hair Club--Steffani's the President and I'm the Vice President (even though Steffani didn't pluck any nose hairs, she still gets to be President) (because she's a ten-year-old tyrant) (but I'm not bitter or anything) and we've agreed to meet for at least five minutes at every family gathering.

Flash forward to today. My mom's whole side of the family gathered at Grandpa and Granny J's house to celebrate ye olde holidaes, and Steff told me to meet her in the upstairs bedroom for an official meeting of "the club," and so I went up into the upstairs bedroom and then suddenly several people filed into the room: (1) my cousin Jessica, (2) her friend Aida, (3) and my cousin Matt's girlfriend Brittany. They informed me that Steffani had recruited them for "the club." None of them were really sure what the club was, though. Oh, no.

"It's the nose hair club," I tell them.

They're like, "um, what?"

So then Steffani comes into the room and she's like, "okay, Erik: pluck."

We're in it, now, I though to myself. Now, I'd rather just pluck my nose hairs with Steffani (who won't judge my nose hair pluckiness) and Urp (who might judge my plucking, but we used to sleep in bunkbeds together, so whatever), but here I was with Jessica, Aida, and Brittany, all of whom I love and respect (well, okay, I just met Brittany, but she seems cool), and all of whom are like: "you're going to what your nose hairs for us?"

"Pluck them," I shrugged. Sheepish.

"Twenty nose hairs," Steffani ordered.

And I did it. I plucked twenty nose hairs for them.

And they were all so completely disgusted. And then we adjourned the meeting. And now I'm totally, like, the nose hair guy at Christmas. But whatever.