“Achoo!!”

When people sneeze, it is polite to say, “Bless you”. That is the normal social convention. Unless you are Muslim, I do not know their equivalent to Bless You. Perhaps they just avoid sneezing to stop the confusion.

Anyway, I have checked and there is nothing to be found in any etiquette instruction manual about someone sneezing and firing, at a ninety degree angle, a piece of snot onto your strapped up arm. So when this happened to me one evening last week in the chalet, I was breaking new ground.

“Fucking hell Quasifrodo, you snotted me!”

“Sorry mate, I caught most of it, look”, he said, showing me the contents of his hand.

He was factually correct, he had caught most of it, but that did not make the small piece of snot on my arm any less disgusting. Having someone else’s snot on your arm is a million times worse than having your own snot on your arm, which is several times worse than not having any snot on your arm at all.

Snot cannot be shaken off. Even when your arm is functioning normally. So when it is strapped to your chest there is very little chance indeed of it removing itself from your person. So I was forced to find a sink and wash it off.

When I returned Quasimodo was sat in the same chair, with a clenched fist.

“You haven’t washed it off have you?”

“I will in a minute, we are at a very crucial moment in this game of Scrabble!”

He has invited me for dinner when he moves house in a few weeks. I will be taking my own food.

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