phlegmbot.

I can’t exactly tell you what “sinuses” are, but I can confidently say that I have them, and I hate them. My favorite way of describing this problem is: “My sinuses are acting up again,” a phrase that I always thought was normal until a friend recently kept repeating it back to me, like I had said something along the lines of “my hosiery is bunching.” I suppose my dad use to say that (about sinuses, not hosiery). If I tell you that my sinuses are “acting up,” I am just trying to convey that it feels like a hippopotamus decided to stifle my stuffy, runny nose by sitting on my face. The pressure, the inability to breathe—delightful, really. Three cheers for sinuses! Hoorah!

There are no pretty words to describe sinuses. For example: drainage. Snot. Phlegm. Mucus. Sick, sick, sick. There are also nice phrases you can use during your suffering, like “sorry, I don’t mean to suck back my snot,” or “I keep coughing up drainage.” Dinner table commentary. Like the melodious sounds of nose-blowing, everyone loves hearing it.

I’m happy to report that the hippopotamus is slowly easing off my face, though. Soon I’ll be back to tip-top shape, and I promise to stop throwing around words like “phlegm.” In the meantime, I wish you health and happiness.