Spreading It Around

There was an old woman from Kent
Whose nose was most terribly bent.
One day she chose, to follow her nose
Now nobody knows where she went.

I always get a laugh from this limerick, I can just picture someone making right and left hand turns until they are so completely lost that they have no idea how they got to where they are. Can you follow your nose and stay on the straight and narrow, or can you just as easily get yourself into trouble by doing the same?

What do you think of when you hear the term “Follow Your Nose”? Does it mean to go straight ahead without deviating from the path, or does it fall into the same category as the old “Go with your gut” statement?

Follow your nose to find where that smell is coming from, or look straight ahead and follow your nose to the sign marked “Restrooms” that the store clerk just pointed you toward, if a smell is coming from that restroom then you need to be shopping elsewhere, so make a smart decision and follow your nose to the exit.

Go with your gut; make decisions according to that first feeling you get. If you have a bad feeling then something is definitely wrong, whether you can see it or not your gut has just given you a sign. I bought a car once and the whole time I was test-driving it, arguing the price, shaking the salesman’s hand, and signing the papers, I had a bad feeling.

The deal was so great that I couldn’t pass it up, the car was really nice but to make a long story short, it turned out to be one of the worst deals I had ever made, I got laid off from work a few months later and when I went to sell the car, I found out from a potential buyer that it had been wrecked and repaired before I bought it.

I had the hardest time getting this car sold because of this, the money I lost on it made the great deal I got to begin with not appear so good after all, which brings me to the saying “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”

If you see a great deal, a fabulous product, something that will make you a whole stack of money, and you can get the secret for the low price of $19.95, then you have just lost $19.95 because the only one making any money is the seller of the secret you just fell for.

The designer drug that makes two bathtubs appear at your home, does no such thing, the towel with no name that is guaranteed to pick up a whole gallon of water without ever dripping will leave your shoes wet, and the fine chopper/shredder that you can slide a potato across invisible blades to make impressive designer potato chips, and fries, will leave you holding a potato.

Invisible blades just won’t work no matter how fast you slide the potato. Your neighbors will peer into your kitchen window and laugh as they watch you rub a blister on your hand trying to make the invisible blades appear.

Don’t you just love neighbors that peer into your windows, we all have had nosey neighbors, and or friends who know more about you than you know about yourself. I smell only trouble coming from people with this type of nose problems.

This reminds me of a neighbor we had when I was a kid, her name was Hazel, she lived directly next door and would always look over the fence and tell Mom the neighborhood gossip, she knew what was going on everywhere, what everyone was doing, and had no problem sharing.

Her unsolicited advice on how you should do this, why you shouldn’t have done that, the correct way to cook, and when all the kids in our household should be spanked, while all of her grandchildren were innocent, and Lord knows any information given to her in confidence really needed to be shared with anyone who would listen.

She would actually stand in her yard and watch us, watch her, watching us through the window, she would repeat her version of conversations she swore came from our house, and tell Mom stories she said came from the other neighbors.

One of her stories told of how Mom was so nosey that she would look through the window and watch Hazels every move, a little bit of this goes a long way when your business is being spread around, and its even worse when the stories are not exactly true.

It all ended with Mom and Hazel standing on the property line nose to nose, Mom had a “Word of prayer” with her so to say, and the last thing I heard coming from Hazels mouth was, “Mind your business, because you are really the one with nose problems”, Mom stormed back to the house and Hazel turned right to follow her nose home, she made a right, then a left hand turn around the back of her house;

And nobody knows where she went.