She's blogging about boogers?

Early 20th Century New York had Typhoid Mary, and contemporary Chicago has a little known, but very serious public health threat.

His name is Boogerstache. And I had all but forgotten him until yesterday.

It was a lovely day in Chicago several years back when friends and I were dining and drinking alfresco at a neighborhood pub. A waiter there—we’ll call him Joe—knew us as regulars and came out to the patio to take our order.

“Ladies, what’ll it be?” He asked.

As we each looked up from the menu to tell him what we wanted, we saw something that would scar us for years to come. A chunk of snot was smeared into Joe’s black moustache.

Now you’d think our appetites would have instantly disappeared, and we would have jumped up screaming from the table. Didn’t happen. We placed our orders and you can imagine our horror when he came back with the food, the booger was gone.

Where did the booger go? That, my friends, was the million dollar question. Of course we took our chances and ate and drank with reckless abandon. Later that year, Jennifer called me to relay that she had seen the offender, now forever named Boogerstache, crossing Taylor “with his index finger buried to the third knuckle” deep in his nose.

Ready to hurl yet?

So yesterday I walk into a market I frequent and I see a familiar silhouette. As I get closer I hear this guy—wearing the store’s uniform—trying to pick some chick. I pass them, he looks at me. He freezes. Yes, Boogerstache, I know about your sordid, snot-smeared past.

I called Jennifer and left a frantic message.

I bet he works in the deli making coleslaw and the like. And I really need to consider Peapod.