Sniffing

I suppose that some readers of my life’s story will suppose that I was always calm and in control. The truth is that I, like my brothers, had my own shinning moments. My dad used to take me up to the mountains to go rock hunting. He was addicted to rocks and he took every chance he could get to jump into his 52 Chevy, drive up into the mountains above our house and go rock hunting. At the time I was oblivious to the fact that my dad was loading five ton rocks by into the back of the truck, but as I look at the rock garden in his front yard now, my jaw drops in awe. While my dad was loading rocks my brothers and I spent our time searching for bullet shells. There were always plenty of bullet shells in the mountains because people would frequently get drunk and either shoot the mountain mistaking it for a giant animal, or use their beer cans for target practice.
“Time to go boys,” my dad shouted.
I grabbed my pile of shells and jumped on the tailgate where we all rode the three miles to our house. When we got home I immediately went to work sorting, washing and polishing my pieces of treasure. I compared my favorites with those of my brothers. We did a little trading back and forth and took our private loots back to our secret hiding places. I selected a bullet that I thought was one of my better ones and placed it in my pocket before I ran down to the kitchen to get some lunch. After we had all eaten our sandwiches we just sat there. It was summer and we were bored so we sat at our round kitchen table staring at each other. A few minutes later my dad happened to walk into this dismal scene. I knew that he hated it when we would just sit around wasting the day and if he saw us involved in such fruitless activity he always found something for us to do. Each of us immediately put a serious look on our faces as if we were in such deep mediation that we should not be bothered, but it was too late, our feeble attempts at deception had not come to fruition.
“You’re burning daylight in here kids, come on I need all of your help,” he stated with sure confidence. He walked out the door knowing that his slaves would be right behind him.
We looked at each other; each of us knowing that we had been stupid. If we wanted to sit around doing nothing like normal kids and not be stuck helping my dad with one of his crazy projects then the only thing for us to have done would have been to hide in our closets, something that I had done many times. My dad held the opinion that important things were only the ones on his to do list, everything else including homework, chores, helping mom, or emergency open heart surgery could wait for whatever extremely important project that just happened to occupy his next few days before he would set it aside with the other piles of his beloved, invaluable things that he he simply could not live without. In his view a little sawing, welding and shellacking could turn anything into a valuable object that could someday save the world.
Today was no exception and I ended up outside in his garage holding a bolt for three hours. He strategically placed all of us right where he thought he might need us. He made us stay for the duration of the project just in case he might need us at some future point. It was plain to all of us that this was a one-man project and our rights as free citizens were being trampled on.
“I’m making a break for it,” I whispered to Andy.
“You’re an idiot,” he kindly, but intelligently responded.
I started backing toward that door. I was almost free.
“Foot-Sack-It! Bryan don’t move you’re ruining the whole project!” Dad screamed at me as he continued grinding a small piece of medal sending sparks flying in every direction.
I was stuck and extremely bored. I put my hand in my pocket and felt the shiny bullet that I had placed there earlier. I took it out and decided that it looked like a rocket. My new rocket zoomed around Andy’s head and in and out of Dallin’s ear.
“Stop it Bryan,” whined Dallin.
“Knock it off!” Dad took a brief timeout from his busy schedule to scold me for entertaining myself.
A few seconds later the rocket decided to tickle the hairs on Alex’s neck. Alex swung and slapped himself thinking that the rocket was a mosquito. The loud slap sent the rest of us into a muffled giggle. One glance from my dad put us back in our places and we stood as still as soldiers on the brink of a terrible battle. My rocket surfaced again but this time its journey stayed closer to home base.
“Houston there is a malfunction in the back oxygen tank,” my mind had become lost in imagination.
“Captain bring it in for a landing abort, this mission is over,” replied a second voice within the darkness of my mind.
“Copy Houston.” The rocket zigzagged back and forth. Only an experienced pilot could bring this renegade to a landing. The rocket headed for the safety of the first dark, moist hole it could find.
Lost in another world I crash landed the bullet shell inside of my right nostril. In my rush to obey the commands of an imaginary command post I had wedged a small piece of metal inside of my head. I immediately discontinued all breathing activity from my nose and started breathing out of my mouth to avoid the shell from working its way into my brain. Safe for the moment I closed my eyes and began to panic. I was silent for the rest of my stay in my dad’s shop. I just stood there hoping that dad would finish quickly because I felt as if my head was on fire. Thoughts of my mother weeping hysterically at my funeral flashed through my mind.
I was at last released from my servitude for the night. I motioned Andy to come up to my room with me. I really did not want to admit my stupidity to anyone, but this was an emergency, my life hung in the balance.
“You did what?” Andy asked as if he didn’t believe me.
“You heard me, I got one of my bullets stuck in my nose,” I embarrassingly replied.
“How...”
“Don’t even ask. I need you to help me get it out.”
I pulled out a flashlight and handed it to Andy.
“I don’t see it, but there sure is a lot of dirt in here,” Andy mentioned as he was straddling my chest and staring up my nose.
“Grab the magnifying glass in the top drawer of the desk,” I replied with a slight accent created from Andy’s fingers working to shove the flashlight inside my nose.
“Wow, I never knew how cool the inside of a nose could be.”
“Yeah, yeah whatever, but do you see the bullet casing?”
“Yep, here it is. Oh, wait a second… nope, never mind it’s just a piece of corn. How did you get a piece of corn inside your nose?”
“I like to sniff things okay, just get it out and look in the other side. It’s in the right side, not the left,” I was losing my patience and wanted to get this thing pulled out, not to mention that it had become exceedingly difficult to breath with my brother sitting on my chest.
“Okay I see it now. Wow, it looks to be a perfect fit,” Andy grabbed the tweezers and started tugging.
I screamed. I was brave, but this hurt, and I was not used to having things extracted from my nose.
“What’s going on up there?” my mom yelled from the bottom of the stairs.
“Sorry mom, Bryan just smashed his nose,” Andy called back down. He then turned back to me to convey the bad news. “It’s no use. I think you’re going to have to tell mom and have Dad pull it out.
“No way!” I resolutely stated, “I’ll find a way out of this.”
We went down for dinner, but it did not last long. Every time Andy looked at me he started laughing. My mom sent us both away hungry, since she thought we were laughing at her cooking abilities. With the extra time in my room I decided to play with the bullet wedged in my nose. I could feel it, but it was such a perfect fit that I couldn’t get any leverage. I kept at it and soon my nose became so raw that it felt like it was on fire. Just then I had a brilliant idea. I grabbed a tube of Vaseline and shoved it up my nose as far as it would go. I emptied as much jelly as would fit around the bullet casing.
I began to flare and flex my nose rapidly. “Flare and flex, flare and flex,” I kept repeating inside of my head. With every flex I could feel the bullet loosening and even though chunks of red petroleum jelly fell from my face I continued to persevere. Before long I could feel the bullet sticking out of my nose. I grabbed the tweezers and ripped it out. I threw the bad memory into the garbage and at that moment decided to retire from collecting bullet shells. Yes, this experience may have left me with lasting scars on the inside of my right nostril, but this trial provided Andy and I with an increased respect for one another. To this day I still respect Andy for having the courage to stick his fingers up my nose and he respects me for having the courage to rip a sharp metal object out of my soft facial tissue.