Inauspicious Omens

I woke up this morning and said to myself, "My, Robbie, it's bright and nice out, I bet it's gonna be another wonderful day!"

Then I reached behind my head to my bedside table for a tissue because, as some of you may be aware, my sinuses have been waging a long and bloody war on the rest of my body this week. So the first act of any given day is usually a big long honk, intended to remove as much mucus from my head as is possible using only one kleenex. I honked long and loud, but quickly sensed that something was off. Glancing down at my kleenex, I noticed that it was redder than usual, and wetter than is customary.

My inner nasal bulkheads, weakened by the constant use and repeated blasts of high-pressure air and snot, had just given out, and I had just sprayed like a ton of blood into a kleenex. In short, I had a bloody nose.

"Oh," I said to myself. "One of THOSE days."

Thinking quickly, I snatched another kleenex and dashed for the bathroom. I managed to avoid getting even a drop of my blood on my pillows or bedding or clothing, but the same cannot be said for that poor bathroom. My life's blood was draining out my nasal aperture at a prodigious rate, quickly soaking the entire cleanex and dripping red from the bottom. Rolling a quick nose-tampon from nearby toilet-paper, I switched containment vessels, though three massive red spurts of blood had time to spray into the sink while I was in between them.

I use the word "sprayed" advisedly. This was a fascinating nosebleed to watch, because I could actually see my own heartbeat as the blood spurted rhythmically into the kleenex, thin and hot. Once I'd managed to cause a partial stoppage (or at least a "watch as the tissue you're using slowly bleeds from white to red), I had time to think. Here's what I thought, in a rough order:

1. Wow. How come watching my own blood get splattered all over everything is always so pretty? It really ought to be disturbing.
2. (As the bloody tissues piled higher by the side of the sink) This is like the opening scene of the third X-men movie! I could make some beautiful cinema out of this...
3. I wonder if it's possible to get lightheaded enough from bloodloss that you can actually fly?
4. Man, this stuff looks way more realistic than my fake blood. It clots so much better. I guess I could always get pig blood or something for Vampire costuming...if I ever walk in covered in dried blood, but then Simon would probably rather show up late than show up messy...
5. That's...that's really pumping, isn't it? That's a pretty big pile of kleenex and toilet-paper, too...I wonder how much of this stuff I can lose before I faint?
6. Doesn't it usually clot by now? What's it been, two minutes? Three? Why do I never check my watch at the beginning of these things?
7. Maybe it hasn't clotted because I'm on so much random sinus and cold medication! I'll bet one of 'em has "blood-thinner" as a side effect! I'm going to die by nosebleed!

At this point I made a quick dash into the living room, in my boxers with hands covered in blood holding twisted tissues to my right nostril. Ilana was napping on the couch.

"Hey, Ilana," I said, knowing that she was a medical person of some sort, "d'you know if any of my cold drugs have 'blood-thinning' as a side effect?"

"No," she said, sleepily.

"Huh. Alright. Look, if you hear a loud 'thud' from in there, it's me fainting. If that happens, call someone, okay?"

"Okay," she said, and rolled over on the couch.

I dashed back to the bathroom, slightly more confident in my capability of surviving the situation, and squeezed the bridge of my nose and tore new sheets of toilet paper with my elbows (because my hands were in use-never underestimate the elbow as a grasping/tearing/manipulating objects appendage) and generally (but quietly!) freaked out about my own mortality until, slowly, the bleeding lessened. I was able to switch out nose-tampons without getting spurts of blood spraying out between them, the pressure was slowly turning down on the hose that was my circulatory system. Finally, I was able to pull the tissue away and watch for a while, and no more blood came out. I shoved a last hastily-rolled cone of tissue up there as a stopgap measure (sometimes your nose tries to lull you into a false sense of security, you see), and looked down at the mess I had made. Not too bad, really. Just a whole lot of blood spattered on linoleum. I grabbed my camera and took a few photos to remember the scene by. They're not particularly amazing photos, but they might inspire a blood-drenched comic panel or two later on, I dunno.

Then I cleaned up. Threw away all the tissues ("I hope these don't come into the hands of any magicians who could use my blood to control me from a distance," I thought), wiped up all the blood with hot water, washed my hands with soap and warm water...and the whole ordeal was over, though I knew it might start up again if I blew my nose in the wrong direction.

My final conclusion of the morning is as follows:

"If you're going to messily murder someone, do it in the bathroom. Blood comes off of linoleum really easy, and leaves no trace that it was ever there."
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