Storytime with Hiroyo
To give context to this conversation, we were talking about serious injuries we have sustained up until now.
H: Well this isn't an injury really, but I stuck beans up my nose!
M: ...why?
H: Well, I was a kid and my dad was cracking soy beans because we would eat them. And I lived in the country, you know, so our idea of 'having fun' was digging in the dirt or catching bugs. So they were all just laying there and they were just the right size and - well. I don't know why, but I really wanted to put it up my nose.
H: So I stuck one up there, then two, then three. But I thought I should probably take them out before my mom found out - because she was really scary-mean when I was a kid. She's really nice and all now, but she was terrifying when I was little. Anyway, I was a kid, so I didn't think to just blow my nose and send them flying, I just stuck my finger up there to try and get them out.
M: But that only pushed them farther up?
H: Exactly. So they got really far up there and my voice got all nasally and high, and I thought, mom is going to get so mad at me. So I decided not to tell her and I actually made it until supper time. But she noticed that my voice was strange and she looked up my nose when she got suspicious - and you know beans, right? Their real small when they're dry, but when they get wet-
M: They expand.
H: Yes. So by this time the beans had soaked up my snot and my nose itself was super big and puffy and my voice was high and my mom looked up my nose and - well. It was an emergency, right? We had to go to the hospital. I got in trouble.
M: Why the hell..?
H: I was a kid! Besides, the doctor told us I wasn't the only one who'd done it before. I think it's something a lot of kids do.
M: I've never heard of it. I think the doctor was just trying to reassure your mother that her child wasn't a complete moron.
H: He was not! It happens a lot!
M: Keep telling yourself that.
Thank you, Hiroyo. You brighten my day.