Disgust As A Weapon

By Ellis

June 19, 2011

In my run-up to Harry Potter Finale, I am re-reading the books and watching the films (while attired in my tiara and waving both my wands), AND -- hang in there...I'll make the connection in just three, two, ....... I find myself constantly amazed at J.K.'s ability to work boogers into every book. 

Yes, if it's not one of the Weasley brothers talking about them...hmmm......a family of five brothers and one little sister...are we surprised?  Mais no!  ...yes, if it's not Weasleys, it's booger-flavored beans on the candy trolley or some such nonsense. Clearly, kids are fascinated by boogers.  As a child who had horrible allergies and sinus infections, who slept like the elephant man (sitting up) most of her first twenty-some-odd years of life and who has blown her nose into more tissues and hankies than Imelda had shoes, boogers were just about the last thing I wanted anything to do with.

On the other hand -- when I was about 10, I fell on the floor furnace and gouged out a large part of my knee.  It should have had stitches (we know this now), but I was the child of a farm daughter.  You didn't stitch stuff unless it was a knife wound -- a really, really BIG knife wound -- like maybe a pitchfork through your leg.

So for weeks and weeks (perhaps months and months), I went about with this massive hole in various stages of healing, and, as kids are wont to do, periodically ripped off the developing scab with the very large band-aid I would be using to cover it on any given day.  At some point, it began to smell -- bad.

Not "badly," mind you, but "bad" as in "smellbad" -- a whole new level of odiforous. 

So what did we little girls (sugar and spice and ever’thing nice) do?  We used it to our advantage.  Yes, I distinctly remember that for a period of about 2-3 weeks, anytime the boys would chase us, take away our jump-ropes, etc., we would pick out one boy, chase him down, hold him down (the other boys NEVER helped  him, of course) and -- make him smell my knee. 

Now I was never a promiscuous girl growing up.  If you went back to my high school and asked, "Anyone here ever sleep with Ellis?" you won't get a single yes (if they're truthful).  Much to my chagrin, however, several DOZEN business and civic leaders of Memphis today can truthfully say -- some forty-odd years ago, they smelled my knee -- and once was enough.