Do you know how a good sneeze can be satisfying? You can feel the itch in your nasal passages and it builds and it builds and your neck and shoulders tighten ever slow slightly in preparation of the sneeze. Part of you does not want to sneeze, but you know that once you do there will be a moment of satisfaction and relief. And sometimes, maybe someone interrupts you, or the sneeze is not as cleansing as you thought and you think “Man, that totally was not what I wanted it to be.”
Do you know what I am talking about?
Do you know how a good yawn can totally make you feel better? Your body is craving the oxygen and you look forward to the stretching of the neck and mouth muscles and the refreshment of a deep clean breath. Then in mid-yawn someone stops you. Your yawn is interrupted. Like maybe your spouse sticks his finger into your open mid-yawn mouth as a joke (Lauren hates when I do that) and you are left feeling like you need another yawn but you know you can’t really make yourself yawn, so you sit there waiting.
The other day I was on the phone with Lauren. I was at work and she was home. I asked her if she knew where a certain photo was.
“No. I haven’t seen it.” She said.
“Well I took it from the side of the fridge and I scanned it. And I remember taking it out of the scanner but I don’t know what I did with it after that. I am pretty sure I left it on the desk.”
“Well,” Lauren replied “if you would have put it back where it belonged then you would know where it was.”
“Go ahead Bill.” Lauren said. “Roll your eyes and sigh.”
She got me in mid eye roll and mid sigh. It doesn’t matter that she was six miles away and couldn’t see me. She knew what I was doing.
She interrupted a perfectly good sigh and rolling of the eyes. It felt like a stifled sneeze or a half yawn.
No satisfaction what so ever.