In Church? Really???

Whenever you hear the muffled sounds of children trying to disguise the fact that they are, in fact, trying to muffle the sounds of laughter, you know there is trouble.

That trouble is generally doubled when you are in church.  Especially during that solemn, yet joyful, moment in the service when you supposed to be giving thanks for the communion you just received.

We were in the pew, me closest to the aisle, next to Nickels, who was between me, Babe and Mike, with Hoo sitting closest to the other end of the pew.  Both Nickels and Hoo were staring down at the Babe, stifling giggles.  They were not doing a very good job.

My gaze focused directly on Babe, who seemed to be the source of the joke.  He just looked up at me like "Help.  What do I do?" as he extended his index finger to reveal the biggest, most disgusting looking, ball of booger I had seen in a long, long while.

I almost choked up my communion wafer and wine.

There were less than five minutes that Babe needed to stand there with his finger extended, not touching anything.  And, in real time, that is nothing.  But, in church time, with a snot-fingered seven-year-old in tow, that is like five hours.

This is when I realized I need to stock my purse with Purell AND kleenex.

But, honestly, summer is the "off season" for kleenex for me.  Come about October first of most years, I start to stock cough drops and tissue.  But early September?  Nah.

Guess my opinion on that, given I have three boys, should just go ahead and change.

On the way to the car, after a trip to the restroom, a thorough hand washing, and a handful of apologies aimed at me and my queasy stomach, Babe revealed what had REALLY happened.

He pointed to his nose and said "This tube, right here?  It was feeling really, really blocked up.  I didn't mean to pull anything out, I just wanted to unblock it."

A discussion ensued about the germy nature of noses and the virtues of hand washing and the need to keep hands away from noses and use kleenex for blocked tubes, especially in church, in the future.

Babe seemed to ingest this mini-lecture with the intent to be sure never to have this conversation again. 

As for me, I am going to pay better attention to the hand/nose connection for the remainder of the year.  And, maybe, into 2013 and beyond.

Should anyone breach the nose/finger boundary my brain established this morning, they are in for the swat of their lives.

Consider yourselves warned, boys.