There’s no socially tactful way to get rid of a nose whistle.
It’s happened to you: that sound when you inhale after something nasal misaligns in such a way to turn your nose into that recorder you had to play when you were a kid. The thing is, it arrives without notice.
That being said: this happened yesterday.
I tried some Veggie Straw snacks from the sample lady at the end of the aisle in Costco.
“They’re all natural, healthy and delicious,” she barked, then quieter to me, “here you go sir, try some.”
I took the little paper cup and ate an orange one. I shrugged my shoulders.
“What’s the matter?” she asked flatly.
“Nothing.” I was immediately sorry I stopped at her station. I tried a yellow and a green one. “Um, they taste the same, all the colors.”
She stopped filling more sample cups and looked me in the eye.
“They’re all different vegetables. Look.” She held the bag up in front of my face and went back to yelling out her script adding that they were on sale.
I interrupted her, “yeah, but they all taste like potato.”
She stopped short.
Mocking, and with a slight head swagger, “Do all your vegetables taste like potatoes, sir?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered sheepishly.
We stared at each other.
“You want a bag?”
An awkward moment of quiet followed.
Then it happened.
“Fweeeeee.”
She tilted her head the way dogs do when they hear something.
Crap.
At some point during our conversation, something in my nose shifted in the airway making it essentially a reed instrument.
I sniffed again harder to hopefully clear it. It instead got louder.
“Fweeeeeee”
So I blew hard hopefully enough to move stuff around but not so hard to jettison anything. This only lowered the tone a half-step.
She shook her head in disgust but never broke eye contact.
I wildly sniffed and blew staccato blasts while we stared at each other. I could see the sides of my nose billow and fall.
She looked around hoping someone else was witnessing this.
I stopped. This was not going to be fixed with just aspirations so I switched to mouth-breathing.
I felt obligated to buy the stuff after her having to live through this but I hated the product.
“I’ll go buy a bag,” I lied. Then without using my nose, I breathed like Darth Vader.
“Here.” She handed me one.
“No, it’s ok. I don’t want to take from your display.” I gave it back to her. “I’ll get one from the aisle.”
She’d heard that one before.
She put it in my wagon. “There. I’ll save you the trip.” She gave me a smile, the kind that says, “nice try, jackass.”
I looked at the Veggie Straws in my cart and sighed.
“Fweeee.”