With a nose like this, it’s hard not to get a little ‘buggy’

I have the most attractive nose in the world.

I know, I know, that sounds a little conceited, and I suppose the comment could be interpreted that way. But it’s true; my nose really is—to misquote Keats—a “thing of beauty and a joy forever.”

Oh, it’s not particularly attractive to women, or men either, for that matter. But—this summer, especially—the bugs seem to just love it. I’ve had hundreds of them fly up my nostrils since early this spring.

Insects seem to be especially attracted to my nose when I’m riding my bicycle. It started this June, when a June bug (one of nature’s little “mistakes”) collided with the bridge of my nose as I pedaled down the east side of Michigan Street Hill. I saw it coming, homing in on me like a World War II stunt fighter, buzzing like a rip saw, but too late, far too late.

The sound it made as it smacked against my unprotected snout resembled nothing so much as a wet chicken bone being broken by an angry chef. June bug innards oozed gooily into my otherwise impeccable (unless I’ve been eating ice cream) moustache and I almost rode into the side of the American Legion Post on the corner of Grand Street.

Still naïve as to the creepy obsession bugs were to have on my snoot this summer, I wrote the incident off as an accident, pedaled down the street to Birch Lodge, ordered a beer, and went to the bathroom to try and scrub bug guts off my face.

Later that same month I was chugging along a stretch of Gravel Ridge, a long, moderately hilly bit of country road not far from my rural abode. This time the bug in question was a deer fly (another of nature’s mistakes, and one of the worst).

The deer fly wasn’t content to simply perform a Kamikaze run at my proboscis, as had the June bug, but instead circled my head in ever-tightening orbits—to get a better look at my glorious schnozolla, I assume. Mile after long, country mile went by, and still the deer fly maintained his worshipful vigil.

Eventually, he tired, landed on my left arm, and I summarily executed him with an Obama-like swat. I have no need of worshippers, at least not the creepy-crawly variety.

The worst offenders, though, are the little clouds of flying bugs. They might be gnats, they might be mites—I don’t know from bugs—they could even be my imagination, but they are definitely annoying. Individually, I’m sure I could take ‘em. But they don’t fight like that. They travel in packs, millions of ‘em swarming like blindly militant nano-creatures from some Dean Koontz novel.

And mostly where they swarm is up my nose.

Doesn’t matter if I’m riding my bike, walking, or driving with the window open; they find their way into my vulnerable olfactory orifices. There have been whole days this past summer that I’ve not had to eat; I’ve taken in all the calories I need in the form of tiny bugs performing ritual suicides inside my snoot.

At least I hope they’re dying in there. Oh, man, what if they’re not? What if they’re crawling back into my brain, slowly taking control? What if…

Attention. Reality Check readers will now disregard this column. Go about your business. There’s nothing to see here and no reazzzon to be alarmed. Repeat. Bzzz … Go about your buzzziness.

Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.