Are we supposed to dig our noses?
The other day while I was stuck behind a red traffic light my eyes decided to take a little wander around. In front of me, there was a dark dirty green squarish Volvo. Must be one of those older models. It had a child seat at the back, and in the front, all I could see was a dark red bushy set of hair radiating from the driver’s seat. Probably a mom doing her grocery shopping or something with the kid at the back. I made a mental note not to follow her too closely. ‘Housewives’ tend to brake suddenly for reasons only known to themselves. Perhaps the kid was like me when I was young and therefore being a real pest.
Directly next to the Volvo was an unrecognisable old model automobile. A two seater at that too. It was dark grey and looked like it was plucked right out of an old black and white movie. The car was occupied by, I assume a married old couple. How sweet.
On my right was a regular modern sedan, metallic maroon in colour. Perhaps it was a Camry, I don’t know. The driver was a youngish blonde lady, looking at her rear mirror and putting on lipstick. I bet she will be slow off the mark when the lights turn green.
Not wanting to turn my head all the way around, I used my rear-view-mirror to look at who was behind me. It was a old beige Holden Commodore, with its best years behind it. The driver was a huge fat guy - so huge in fact that the handbrake was probably underneath one of his bum cheeks. Regularly, I would have moved on, as there were so many cars, so many people to look at. But not this time - this time this guy caught my eye. I was particularly intrigued because he had his index finger (the finger we use to point) deep within the cavernous orifice that were his nostrils. And his finger was in there for a while too. A good 5 seconds, at least. After he removed his finger (with a ‘pop’ sound I imagine), he did what all of us would do, he took a glance at his finger. I mean, come on, everyone wants to know what REALLY is hidden deep within their noses, am I right? But what followed shocked me (although it shouldn’t have) - he proceeded to put his finger in his mouth and then to chew. Yummy!
Why it shocked me, I don’t know. Because if you think about it, everyone has probably tried to eat their snot before. I surely have. I was pretty young though, I must admit (maybe 23 years old? heh heh). And I don’t remember the experience being rather unpleasant either. A bit salty, a bit chewy. Mind you, I picked a good one (pun not intended) to savour, it wasn’t too slimy or wet, and not too crunch and dry. It was… perfect. Ever since then though, the appeal of eating ‘nostril waste’ has slowly tapered down.
I am sure I am not the only kid to have a good dig up my nostrils. In fact, if you watch ‘Funniest Home Videos’, I bet there are pratically tonnes of snot eating people around. It is so common in fact, that there is a scientific term for people who dig their noses often, its called "rhinotillexomania". There is also a scientific term for the consumption of our mucus - "mucophagy". I am not making this up, I swear!
So if it happens so often, it would be prudent to ask the questions, "Are we SUPPOSED to dig our noses? Are we supposed to eat our snot? Is societal pressure just getting in the way of our natural state?". These are fair questions indeed. We can also add to this another important mind boggling question, is it a coincidence that the human finger fits so nicely into the human nostril? Think about it. We have 5 sizes of ‘drills’, the smallest for those deep hard to reach places, and the largest for the ones right near the opening of the nostrils. But all of them fit nicely. If mother nature didn’t want us to dig our noses, she would have either made of noses smaller, or our fingers bigger. It worked for our ear-holes now, didn’t it?
So, if we were meant to dig our noses, and meant to eat our nose-waste, what possible use could it have for us? Aha, another good question (you guys are learning well!). Well, some professor in Austria (Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger) has suggested us that eating our mucus is akin to a mild form of immunisation, since we are literally ingesting a collection of dead/dying bacteria. So, by eating our mucus, we actually slowly build up our immune system! Isn’t mother nature a sheer genius?
