Change Gears Garry
and his scrapbook of snollies.

Garry did not just LIKE to pick his nose,
he LOVED it
he NEEDED it.

He took it seriously
and he did it well
and he did it daily.

All his life, Garry was teased and mocked,
bullied, bashed and beaten
just because he loved something different
to what everyone else loved.

Society does not like
the passionate picker of noses.

The worst day at school
was when he brought his scrapbook
for “Show & Tell” –
his big booger book of wonderful wonders.

But it is hard not to have such a book,
when you always feel that you have one on the runway
or a torpedo in the tube.

Who can resist the call of those
chunky lumpy blobby bits of slimy snot?
…Garry could not.

“Go blow your nose!” his Dad would say.
“Not in public dear” his Mother would urge.

But it is impossible not to respond
when a feeling deep down inside
asks you to harvest a fresh sourdough loaf
from that busy little artisanal oven on your face.

Oh those…
Chewy, chunky chunks of gloppy, gloopy glue!

those…
Wiggly wobbly, stringy globs of gooey green grunge!

those…
Clumpy, grumpy blobs of squelchy nasal nectar.

those…
Fluffy, crusty flakes of hardened nostril nougat

those…
Pale, pasty splats of stretchy, spongy snot spaghetti.

Oh those…
Pearly, curly ribbons of squishy sinus soup!

And so, with fervour and focus,
with love, joy and wonder
he collected each heavenly surprise
and stuck them down with sticky tape.

He neatly named, dated, described and lovingly labelled each piece.

Garry developed his detailed, delicate taxonomic classification of all things snot.
There was not one lost or forgot.

The taser gun taunts and terrible tear-down teasing tore him deep
but his snollies were just something he had to keep.

As he got older, things did not slow down.

He developed some principles of extraction and some harvesting techniques.

The trusty One finger One nostril.

The Tight Two finger One nostril.

The good-old Index finger Forage and Find.

The Index finger and thumb Anchor Assist.

The Deep Probe Face Fuck you finger Find.

The Nail Loosen and Scoop.

The Shotgun – (Simultaneous Index fingers) – left and right – both nostrils – same time salute.

The Whistler index finger in right nostril and the fuck you finger in left nostril.

The Inverted Whistler  – above, but the other way around.

With all these techniques, he felt satisfaction
– not arrogant pride
but he had no girlfriend,
and it looked unlikely he’d ever have a bride.

While he had the most beautiful digits
and super smooth hands
and manly manicured nails,
life was still hard
and he barely kept it on the rails.

He had wanted to be a medical doctor – an E&T specialist
but his school marks had suffered from all the anxiety
and he found the study fees prohibitive.

So he worked as a button pusher
to strengthen his fingers
but as we well know
the pushing of buttons does not pay
very well.

…and his colleagues at work
never popped by his cubical
just to say hi.
No one carried him some coffee
or shared a birthday cake.

No one looked him in the eyes.

He did do some work as a hand model for high-end jewellery
and fancy fountain pens and a few fine fragrances
until someone at work sent his agency a photo of him at work on his nose
and that came to a close.

Money was tight, and opportunities slim
-to put it quite bluntly – no one wanted him.

And in the depths of despair
and in his desert of depression
he set up an account with photos of his natural history documentation
or, as he liked to call it… the systematics of snollies.

After a few years, he was offered a book deal.

I know this to be true because I worked as his editor.