The Snot Rocket

I spent a lot of time as a kid trying to develop super powers. I would take anything I had the slightest ability in, and in some way try to justify it as being “beyond human.” Basically, anything that could in some way demonstrate that I had different parents spawned its own masked identity at one point or the other.-For one entire summer I was “The Mosquito” because I had somehow decided that I had a very good sense of smell. What this has to do with mosquitoes I have no idea. Also for some reason, to maintain my secret identity when I “became” the Mosquito I stuck my head inside of a soccer ball I had cut up just for that purpose. I also made myself a visor out of legos that I would periodically have to repair when it fell apart. Again, I have no idea what this had to do with mosquitoes. When the seasons changed and it got damp outside I had to give up this identity, because my soccer helmet started to smell.

-That same winter I was the “Clay Avenger” because I could put a bunch of clay on some old clothes of mine, glom it in place, and then change my shape given enough time. Eventually the clay started to get brittle and I didn’t have any money for more. Thus ended the noble crime fighting career of the “Clay Avenger.”

-Before I settled on my final identity I was “Zorngo.” This was without a doubt my most pitiful creation. I didn’t have any powers, or sense of mission, but I compensated by wearing a really tight red turtleneck and drawing a lightning bolt on it. Eventually I outgrew the turtleneck.

Every time I had tried to construct a super-identity I kept running into the same problem. I’m not really that good at anything. I’m fairly strong, but no more so than other people my size. Coupled with the fact that I’m the slowest thing on two legs, have always been overweight, and am really not very good looking there was very little of me to remake into a hero. While I do possess remarkable dexterity… who has ever heard of a super hero with “unusually good dexterity.”

Throughout my childhood there was really only one thing that set me apart from the crowd, other than my natural largeness. I had the worst sinus congestion in McDermoth Elementary School’s entire second grade history. Remember, how as a child your school supply list always included “1 box: tissue paper?” Usually, this ends up in a large pile in the back of the room, with only five or six of the thirty or so boxes consumed at year’s end. Not so during my second year stint in Elementary School.

My second grade year I developed the worst sinus allergy I have ever had in my entire life. I was a mouth breather for a solid eight months out of any year. The cold returned seasonally, but never again with the same force as that first year. It was in such a state that I stumbled across my true super power at long last.

I sneezed.

It ended up being one of my most character defining moments. A trail of snot erupted from my nose, seeming to stretch out longer than my body, and hurling itself at what felt like an impossible velocity onto the hallway floor beneath me. People all around stopped whatever they were doing, in sheer awe, so they could for a moment admire the way the sunlight danced off the glistening spider-silk like web that was exiting my face. I had to break the strings of snot with my hands because they were as viscous as melted cheese. As most super heroes, I had no idea of how this event would impact my life until much later.

I was walking around on the playground one day, by myself, as befits an emotionally traumatized kid who has 8 month seasonal head colds and likes to pretend he’s a super-hero in his free time, when suddenly I saw Them.

Susie, Anna, Ashton, and Kelly… the McDermoth McBitches. The mere sight of them made me want to blow gallons of mucus rich snot out of my nose. They were being mean to someone again. Suddenly my nose wrinkled and I suppressed another sneeze.

I had the greatest idea I have ever had in my entire life.

It was Susie I walked to first. She was a blonde haired, blue eyed doll with the heart of a Nazi. “Susie, I think you better leave that girl alone.” I began to hyper-ventilate anticipating what was to come.

Susie turned to me. She was dressed like a perfect little angel. Her parents had done well indoctrinating her with the belief that she was inherently superior. I wondered how she would react. In between heavy pants I said “I won’t ask twice, Susie!” and when she replied,

“What do you think you’re going to do about it fat ass?” That was all I needed.

Instinctively, I put my left thumb in my left nostril, to increase the pressure. I tilted my head back… and let go.

It was beautiful. Semi-orgasmic.

Time slowed as my snot missiles soared toward her face. Like a wet noodle, the first string hit her at the corner of the mouth, and then folded itself in a twisting scar-shaped arc up the side of her face. She was drenched with my snot. I had covered her with it. Looking back I realize what I had delivered was the nasal equivalent of a Peter North style facial.

She began to do what any prima donna would do in a similar situation. She began to cry.

As I wiped my philtrum clear of the detritus and residue I smiled.

All at once Mrs. Raburn grabbed me by the arm and spun me around. I was man-handled across the playground, until I finally placed by a nearby wall. I was to stare at that wall for the rest of that recess, and all the recesses thereafter for the rest of the week. It did not matter though. I had ascended the pain such mundane punishments could inflict.

No longer was I BC Woods, social outcast, and subversive humorist. I was the Snot Rocket, and it is the role of heroes to be misunderstood. Susie Green misunderstood me all the way through high school.