What did I just see you do?

A childhood bond, a taste for adventure, and a wild vision for the world’s most exclusive dining experience.

Seahorses, found washed ashore on a Peruvian beach, arranged and photographed by Juozas Cernius.

May 26 just passed. I was reminded of my childhood friend, Charles. He lived down the street and we were utterly inseparable for a long time. I can recall in vivid, yet impressionistic detail, like Monet paintings, the little forests we explored, his family’s British accents, their Siamese cats, sleepovers, and so much laughter. We collaborated on every conceivable mischief that young boys could do in the suburbs of London, Ontario, in the 1980s. 

I would only learn much later how my family was chronically bad with money, which doesn’t really matter, but because Charles’ folks had somehow managed to become somewhat affluent, they moved to a nicer neighborhood. He also changed schools, and despite a few visits, our connection dwindled, and we eventually lost contact entirely. That was 40ish years ago. If he walked in front of me at the supermarket today, I would not recognize him, but I still remember May 26th is his birthday. 

To any casual observer, I’m certain I have done countless strange things in my life. But one thing I have never done is eat my own snot. Nothing about it has ever appealed to me, so if I picked it, I flicked it. Charles, on the other hand, ate it. I saw him do it one day, repeatedly, while we watched TV. Baffled, I called him out on it, but he denied it, as if I hadn’t just seen him do it. That was packed in the figure it out later section of my brain, and life moved on.

Me, in the early 1980’s.

Many, many years later, the topic resurfaced when I saw my own son do it. Where on earth does this habit come from, I wondered? 

The internet tells me people pick their noses and sometimes eat the snot due to physiological reasons, like relieving nasal irritation, and psychological factors, such as habitual behavior or coping with stress. Some theories suggest it could have a minor role in immune system development. It all seems like a bunch of malarkey to me. So, when you don’t know what to do with a thing, one option is to expand the thing.  

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Your boogers, I insisted, must be very tasty if you munch them like that.

It’s not fair, by the order of the universe,  that you should be the only one to enjoy it. I’m gonna open a restaurant serving your distinctive globules at very high prices. The customers will be highfalutin types arriving on private jets from the world over. The chef will be highly trained of course, and most likely from a prominent Italian family, like a gangster clan, but looking to turn over a new leaf. We do things properly here. The main tool will be a tiny rubber spatula, let's call it a harvester, designed by German scientists to perfectly dislodge the nuggets from the vestibule of your nose. This’ll be a bona fide international collaboration. A Japanese garden to greet visitors will be cool, too. 

Anyway, the slimy morsels will be smeared directly onto the guests’ fingers. No plates needed, which is a nifty innovation I’m sure will be well noted by reviewers. I’m not sure, but the meal probably qualifies as raw, keto, gluten free, organic, definitely local and maybe even vegetarian. Patrons, admiring their fingers laden with the fruit of your proboscis, will carefully turn their wrists under the optimized lighting conditions, marveling at the contrasting moist, reflective bits and the drier, crusty chunks. 

The challenging art of dining at this establishment will be to find the perfect balance of cherishing the sight of the skeins of mucus, wrapped like tiny octopus legs and shimmering like the trails of slugs, for as long as possible, but not for too long, lest desiccation begin to compromise the experience. We’ll definitely keep the room humidity ideal, but human skin is actually quite absorptive, and snot has a high water content, so do the math. You gotta be quick, but don’t rush! Enterprising guests will really have a great time finding the precise moment to begin indulging, licking it all up and gently squishing the nibbles between the teeth. 

On special occasions, when people like Beyonce come, you know, the elite of the elite, they will get a nose hair embedded in the gluey delicacy. When Taylor Swift shares her enthusiasm on her social media, our ratings will go intergalactic. All these zillionaires will be charged accordingly, because we don’t show overt favoritism – that’s a thing zillionaires are sensitive to. We’re just cleverly tapping into the fact that money means little compared to the value of the overall experience. 

As quickly as this vision was revealed to me, so it was snuffed out when you said, “No! I don't have enough for that!”

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