Blood splatter
As a general rule, it is a bad idea to sneeze while having a bloody nose.
The resulting mess makes clean-up a challenge and the stain of blood splatter patterns on the wall, carpet and furniture could leave future visitors to suspect that something truly sinister had taken place.
My wardrobe is largely dominated by a variety of brightly colored monochromatic shirts embroidered with The Star News logo. These are my work shirts. In effect, I become something of a walking billboard for the newspaper whenever I go anywhere while wearing them. I don’t mind this nearly as much as I probably should, mainly because it helps make people aware that they are talking to someone from the newspaper — as if the notebook in my hand and camera around my neck weren’t tip-offs.
I like to delude myself into believing that I appear far less threatening and creepy when approaching random people at events if I am clearly from The Star News.
Beyond helping me look more official, there is a side benefit to having a wardrobe filled with logo adorned work shirts specifically in the ease of not needing to worry too much when I stumble around in the dark getting ready for work in the morning.
I have never really been one to primp or attempt to be stylish. Part of this is due to the realities of being overweight and that most fashion designers, design for people shaped roughly like malnourished preteens. Other than the times I have been stopped in retail stores while outside the area by people thinking I work there, my collection of Star News shirts worked well for me.
I keep a rotation of my shirts so that each morning I can get dressed and not have to expend too much mental effort in deciding what to wear. I will plan out ahead and make sure that if, for example, I am going to cover Gilman homecoming, I will wear my purple shirt while at a Rib Lake school event I will wear my maroon or gold colored ones. This is not to say I will always remember to wear these or that my rotation won’t get screwed up somewhere during the week.
On Thursday night I attended a Rib Lake school board meeting to see their new administrator in action. In keeping with habit, I wore my gold colored shirt.
Things went well and I was home in my living room Thursday night talking to my wife about what happened at the meeting. We are in the process of cleaning out a bunch of stuff in our home with the goal of repurposing some space. The resulting dust gives me a runny nose and the occasional sneezing fit. I assumed that was what was going on when I felt a tickle in my nose and let out a monstrous sneeze noting only when looking down and saw that my once-gold shirt was spattered with blood drops. Yes, I know, it was pretty gross.
The next 25 minutes was spent with me pinching my nose and trying to staunch the flow of blood while contemplating the disaster that was my shirt.
I may have mentioned this before, but I do not like blood. Attempts at donating blood have typically resulted in me passed out on a floor somewhere. Even the blood draws for physicals is something I would prefer not to think about.
I can respond as needed in an emergency situation, but when I take the time to think about it later, the room starts fading to black.
Since passing out with a bloody nose would just be incredibly embarrassing, not to mention rather messy, I focused my attention on researching ways to clean up blood stains.
If I was a more paranoid person, I would worry that someone would get suspicious that my wife left town to visit her mother after I searched frantically for blood removal tips. Fortunately, I am not quite that paranoid.
It seems, however, there are dozens of different methods to clean up blood, some more gross than others and I was able to utilize this knowledge to save my shirt from being consigned to the rag basket.
Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.
