Sarah Jane Humke

Yeah, you got that right.  I AM the snot monster!  For about a week now I have been extremely easy to track.  Just follow the damp, wadded-up kleenex.  It has been all, “Code Milky Green!” up in these parts. In other words, I have morphed into my arch villein, the Snot Monster.  See, I believe that we all have both an arch villein and a superhero in us.  My superhero, by the way, is the Magnificent Magpie who can spot just what you’re looking for in even the most jumbled-up market booth.  Anyway, the Snot Monster has been in full possession of my person for the past week or so.  See, the hubby and I went to Tallinn to celebrate our anniversary (a bit late, I know) and I got a stupendous head cold.  I mean, like getting up in the middle of the night every few hours to take a hot shower because it was the only thing that made my head feel better kind of head cold.

Luckily, it didn’t strike until our last night there.  Unluckily, I was using the “unprepared suitcase” AKA, the one without the drugs and first-aid kit in it (seriously).  We were up and out of the hotel first thing in search of someplace that sold Tylenol, ibuprofen, or a really big mallet.  However, the guide-book was really not kidding when it says that Tallinn is a city of late risers.  We were practically STALKING the pharmacy until it opened at 9am.  I think that there were maybe half a dozen places total in all of the old part of Tallinn that opened before, and none of them sold drugs.  I’m sure that the folks inside thought that we were two particularly insane American tourists as we stalked up to the door, looked at the time, stood around a little uncertainly, then wandered off glumly trailing wet tissues time and time again.  Finally, when it opened, I had this perverse and inexplicable need to look at the historical display that they had set-up of what the pharmacy used to sell (horse testicles anyone?).  Finally, the lady behind the counter was free and I rushed-up to her and in nearly incomprehensible (to me) English asked for drugs for my head.  I’m guessing that this lady got this request in this caliber of English a lot as she asked me a series of questions ending with me walking out with a package of 400mg ibuprofen tablets.  For cheap.  Like, really cheap.  I think it was like a quid.  I’m not completely sure, I just handed her a handful of money and let her sort it out.  Who knows, that may have actually been the most expensive drugs that I have ever gotten in my life!  Though, given that I am an American, that seems really doubtful.

So, I spent the rest of the day in a sort of drug addled fog.  This was probably not the day to be foggy because I went to Karnaluks, the mega craft store, which I will write about (and show a few pictures of) in another blog post.  I ran out of tissues in the store and seriously considered using Estonian money and probably would have except for the fact that the money was often quite grubby and, in some cases, smelled a bit funny.  They are going over to the Euro in a few weeks so I am sure that they probably stopped printing money awhile ago and what’s out has been all sorts of grubby places (pauses to wash hands again). So I was wandering around this store, sniffing loudly, trying to unroll my emergency toilet paper to use as tissues (what, you don’t carry emergency t.p.?) and blowing my nose like an underwater trumpet in a sort of glaze from the drugs, the cold, the overwhelming amount of stuff in the store and from converting the prices into pounds in my head.  On the walk back to the hotel (no taxi as I had spent ALL of the money) we stopped and got me kleenex finally.  I was in a stupefied way, very happy.  I mean, I had drugs, I had yarn, and I had tissues (not to mention my rockin new Estonian convertible mittens!).

That night we flew home after watching the Tallinn airport snow clearing crew do something like the dance of the hippos, only with large tractors and snowplows.  In my drug addled state, it was highly amusing to watch out the window of the departure gate.  This did not make up for the pain that I was about to encounter on the flight.  Actually, the flight was “ok”,  I was hurting, but nothing that I couldn’t handle with just a few tears and screams.  No, it was the LANDING that brought me to my knees.  Seriously, I was hoping that the flight would crash and turn us all to incinerated dust.  My ears would not pop.  They did not pop for DAYS!!!!!  We got home and I don’t think that I really left the bed for anything other than peeing for about 2 days.  Yeah.  I smelled a bit like Estonian money at that point.  I was home, and I had some good American drugs to knock my ass out, as well as some good, strong Estonian drugs.  Warning! Do not mix nationalities of drugs, weird things happen. To anyone who got an e-mail, text message, tweet or really any sort of communication during that time, I am so sorry.  I blame it on the drugs.

Anyway, for the past 3 days or so, I have been trying to capture and destroy all of the errant tissues that seemed to have gotten everywhere, while still making more.  I don’t understand how so very much snot can come out of my nose and sinuses.  I mean, I understand physically how it can happen, still it doesn’t seem quite rational on a physics plane.  You know, the whole laws of matter and space-time stuff.  Just does not seem to be computing.  I mean, it’s a LOT of snot!  It’s not one of those “sniffles” where you have a drip-drip-drip of snot that is easily wiped away with a tissue that can be used for that purpose multiple times.  No, this is one good honk and the tissue is LEAKING.  Yes ewwww.  And it was leaking all over MY FACE!!!!   Double eww!

So, word to the wise, don’t shake hands with me just yet.  And don’t touch my tissues!