Digitally Re-mastered

You’ve fluffed your pillow, said your good nights and gotten into your favorite position. You reach over and turn out the light. A final sigh passes over your lips, the benediction to another day. Quietness falls on the darkened room like coolness from the breeze of the ceiling fan. Then you hear it.

Phwheeeet. Phwheeeet. Phwheeeet. The nose whistle.

It’s one step down on the annoyance scale from the incessant buzzing of the mosquito that somehow manages to get locked in your bedroom.

If you’re the culprit, you can take care of it straightway with the digital nasal realignment.

However, if it’s your partner and they are unaware of the problem, let me suggest you approach them gently. Tact and tenderness are strongly urged at this point. They may be overly tired and therefore cranky if their attempt to fall asleep is interrupted. Gently tap them on the arm and, in your most caring voice, ask them if they would mind you preforming the digital nasal realignment on them. They’ll most certainly appreciate your offer.

Sometimes these things can crop up after both of you are asleep. One will wake up and hearing this, will be unable to get back to sleep. They lay there thinking, “Surely it will go away soon.” As time drags on and they consider their alibi for the impending homicide they decide something must be done.

Here’s something to remember at this point. Don’t take it personally if the offending party is a bit edgy once woken up.

I was cranky once after being awaken and accused of being an accomplice to this. Once.

Marilyn nudged me from sleep and said, “Listen. There’s a nose whistle loose in here,” referring, of course, to me. Feeling wrongly accused I asked in a huff, “What d’ya want me to do about it?”

That was the beginning of one of those male epiphanies.

No sooner had those words escaped my mouth than I knew it was exactly the thing not to have said at the time. I slowly turned over to see what was up and my nose whistle nearly ran over itself trying to get to the bottom of my lungs as I inhaled suddenly. I was disturbed at the sight of two unhappily glowing green orbs where my wife’s eyes should’ve been. With a quivering voice I asked, “Your finger or mine?” I fainted dead away as those orbs quickly came toward my face.

Here’s the sad thing, though. One of our cats has a terminal case. At this time there is no known cure for the feline form of this affliction.

We’ve been unable to make her understand how annoying this is to us. Of course, with her air of superiority she doesn't see anything as being wrong.

We’ve tried to get her to quickly take a deep breath in hopes of dislodging the causative factor. All that exercise did was to make me extremely lightheaded with all the quick, deep breaths I took while demonstrating.

To her credit, the cat did come over to get a closer look after I’d fallen out on the floor. To my utter displeasure the nose whistle followed her.

I’ve had other ideas about how to cure her. They all somehow end up with the ASPCA hauling me off to a public shaming.

There is only one thing that prevents me from preforming the quick fix on her. There is an inordinately disproportionate ratio between finger size and nasal openings.

Then there's the story I'm going to have to come up with to tell Marilyn when she asks me about the flared nostrils on the kitty.

I'm almost positive the ape-nose look would be temporary. You think?

© 2006 Michael Wicinski