Aaah-choo! God bless you.
We all sneeze … and no two individuals sneeze the same. Forget fingerprints, we could be identified by our sneezes.
I went to high school with a beautiful girl named Sheila. Ninety-five pounds, waist-length blonde hair, tiny soft voice and sweet as pie. She was elfin, adorable, and everyone loved her. Then one day, in Earth Science… she sneezed.
She sounded like a 6-foot, red-faced Teamster, or maybe a goat choking on barbed wire. Haaa-HAAAAAAAAAHHH-aaarrrRRR! Time stopped for a moment as it reached a crescendo, then echoed off the plaster walls. (It was a really old school.)
Poor Sheila (who, I forgot to mention, scrunched up her entire face and covered her eyes when she sneezed … her EYES, not her nose) blinked hard, sniffed—and looked up to find every classmate and a student teacher staring at her.
“Was that a sneeze or a seizure?” Amos Cochran, the smartest kid in school, asked. “I mean, I’m concerned.”
“It’s just how I sneeze,” Sheila said, in her tiny voice. Everyone kind of nodded, like, yeah, we get it, and life went on. But I talked with her last month (she is still petite and sweet), and she said our classmates don’t remember her 3.8 GPA, her extracurricular awards or her baby blue VW bug. They remember her sneeze.
A hearty sneeze is strangely satisfying, but I sneeze very briskly. Deep breath and — “chuff!”That’s it. I always sneeze into the crook of my elbow because 1) I did it as a kid, imitating my brothers, and old habits die hard and 2) unlike my darling husband, I can’t remember to carry a handkerchief or Kleenex. But I’m subtle: You may not even know I’ve sneezed unless you see my head bob as my arm jerks up.
Once upon a time I held my modest sneezes in, because I used to attend Very Important Meetings and press conferences and didn’t want to draw attention to myself. (That was drilled into every newbie reporter—never, ever, pull focus from the story you’re there to cover.) But I stopped stifling sneezes one day when I genuinely feared I’d cracked a rib.
It was pollen season. The windows were open. First sneeze, held it in. Second sneeze, OK, this kinda hurts but… held it in. Third sneeze, I felt something pop. Ever since then, I let my sneeze flag fly, period, end of story.
Let’s go back to my darling husband. Widdle is thoughtful, kind, worldly, generous… and he scream-sneezes. It scares me to death, because there’s no buildup. In a quiet room, it’s absolutely terrifying.
We’ll be watching some black-and-white, serious art house film in silence, when a sudden, ear-rattling explosion--think Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier--fills the room. Small animals run. Maiden aunts weep. It makes me levitate off the couch.
Thing is, Widdle doesn’t twitch his nose or touch his face or do any of those tells. Nope, it’s just: “Honey, did you remember to Swiffer the – AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEHUUUUUUOOOWWWW!!!”
I have seen grown men jump/cringe when Widdle sneezes. Once he walked up behind me in the office as I sat writing a column and unleashed one for the ages. I legit burst into tears, it scared me so bad.
And he never sneezes just once, it’s always a volley, which sounds like two cats fighting to the death over a fish-head.
Why the most courteous, soft-spoken human I know sneezes like a Neanderthal on crank, I cannot say. But I love his sneezy, screaming self.
