Mystery #117 – Subconscious

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #117 – Subconscious

As many of you know, my nose has recently gotten me into trouble (see Mystery 118). Here’s a review for you guys real quick: my dentist cut a little too deep when taking out my upper left wisdom tooth and poked almost into my sinus. I blew my nose, raising my sinus pressure, which ended up breaking this thin remaining division. Now I’m stuck at home sniffling and taking antibiotics.

Obviously, it’s a situation I’d like to end as soon as possible, and so when Dr. Heap says “no blowing your nose, sneezing, etc.” I take him VERY seriously. The last thing I need is for this to nearly heal and somehow land myself with another two weeks. No sneezing, got it.

This morning I woke up and I had to sneeze. I panicked. I tried grabbing my nose, kind of massaging it to get the tickle out, but nothing happened. I thought of how you can “ruin” other people’s sneezes, grabbing their arm a split second before it comes out so they get distracted. The sneeze just goes away. But how do you distract yourself? I had a second to act. I knew I had to do something to stop the sneeze. Before I could realize what I was doing, I was yelling out loud.

“There are bees in the merchandise!!!”

…I know, right? Freud would have a field day with that. I just yelled it, loud and proud to my empty room. Going back after the fact, I can kind of deconstruct my thought process, but this all literally happened in a split second and I really only had time to pick it apart once it had happened. I’m pretty sure… and I don’t know here, but I think I may have cycled through some word association. I think I got “bees” from “distraction”, because, I dunno, bees are distracting or something. And then I’m pretty sure my lightening wit decided something random about bees would do the trick. All in all it probably looked something like this.

Sneeze?
Nooooo sneeze
Stop (grab)
Not working
Sneeze stop?
Distraction?
Bees.
There are bees in the merchandise!!!

On one hand, I’m REALLY glad I found some way to avert that crisis. On the other, I’m more than a little troubled that there’s stuff like that floating around in my subconscious. I swear, being alone in this house is driving me crazy…