Snarf. v.

the act of unintentionally expelling a beverage or food item through one's nose, generally the result of witnessing something humorous.


When my girlfriends and I were 12 years old or so, we were obsessed with Pixie Stix. Then again, who wasn't? Artificially flavoured sugar in convenient straw-shaped packaging? Who wouldn't be?

And, as inevitably happens when you are too young to experiment with real drugs, but wish to emulate the experience of doing so, someone came up with the brilliant idea of snorting Pixie Stix.

Why? I have no fucking idea.

But I totally did it.

One night I watched as a friend of mine laid backwards with her head hanging off the end of her bed, inserted the end of an up-side-down Pixie Stick into her nose, and took a looooong inhale...

...and promptly shrieked, leapt off the bed, and flew to the bathroom to attempt to rinse her nose out while I, like any good friend, rolled around on her bedroom floor laughing hysterically.

Rest assured that I bring this story up nearly every time I see her, which, fortunately for her, is not all that often.

This particular event left an indelible impression upon me, and I have always assumed that, above all other foreign substances to enter the nasal cavity--water, milk, grape soda, benzoylmethyl ecgonine--Pixie Stix must be the most painful.

I was, as fate would have it, sorely mistaken.

This afternoon I decided to make a pizza burger for lunch--a pepperoni pizza burger. A restaurant in Hometown used to call it a Godfather Burger, and it is divine.

As my burger browned atop the stove I prepped my toppings and realized that, after topping the burger, I would only have 2 slices of pepperoni left. It seemed silly to put two little slices back in the fridge, so I popped them in my mouth and went about cleaning up the counter.

Then I coughed.

Wait... was that? Did I just feel a piece of pepperoni fly up into my nasal cavity?

I gave an experimental sniff.

Nope. Seemed all clear. Then, a moment later, it began to burn.

Uh-oh.

I sniffed more frantically, but nothing moved. The burn was getting worse and without thinking I grabbed my Neti Pot from the cabinet, filled it with water directly from the tap, and attempted to dislodge the rogue piece of pepperoni.

YEOW!!

Let it be known: Jala Neti normally does not hurt... because you use saline (water with the same concentration of salt as the human body). But flushing your nasal cavity with untreated, cold, Brooklyn tap water? When it's already full of fucking pepperoni? HURTS!!

So now I'm coughing and sputtering and my eyes are blurred with tears as I grope for a paper towel to blow my by-now-very-unhappy nose. I find one and stumble into the dining room frantically blowing my nose.

Thwack!

And there, in the paper towel, was a tiny bit of pepperoni.

Twack-ack!

And another one.


I believe that, through this highly scientific method, the score now rests at Pepperoni - 1, Pixie Stix - 0.


Lunch, however, was delicious!