Drooling

I have grown up with allergies and asthma. So, most of the time my nose is stuffed up and I have to breath through my mouth. Because of this I have a habit of leaving my mouth open for no reason. I don’t realize I’m doing this until someone says to me, “Close your mouth” and by ‘someone’ I mean my Dad. Thanks Dad. Due to the open mouth issue, which is due to the allergy issue, I also have developed a drooling issue. I know, I’m so cute, wicked cute, you want me. I’m not quite sure when it started but my sister assured me the other day that I’ve always had this issue. So I thought I may recap some of my drooling experiences.

I was coloring in a map with four other people in the second grade. I was delegated to coloring North America. It was allergy season (which for me is January 1st through December 15th) and I was having a particularly difficult day. Michael George was sitting next to me. I wanted to marry Michael George, which I would profess to him several times a week by trying to cause him physical harm or by telling him he was short. He was indeed short but then again we were seven. As I was coloring in the southern hemisphere of North America, mouth agape, I heard Jill Whitecross make a noise that was a cross between a high-pitched scream and a gasp from across the desks. I looked at her and noticed that she was pointing at something. I took a closer look to find that there lay a pool of drool somewhere in the vicinity of New Jersey (well, if a state MUST go …just kidding…seriously Daen, kidding). Michael George took one look at the pool, looked at me and then to the boy to his left calmly stating “cootie spray” at which point the boy next to him held up the invisible can of aerosol cootie spray and sprayed him. Jill ran over and held out her arms, closing her eyes (smart girl, I mean who knows what happens when cootie spray gets into an open orifice) waiting to be sprayed. Several kids next to our desks witnessed this and also ran over. This caused a classroom cooties epidemic. Kids were spraying other kids from across the room, panicked and visibly shaken. There were so many questions, I mean, where did the cooties start? What kind of cooties were we talking about here? Person to person cooties, floor to person cooties or just visual cooties? By the time the teacher got control of the classroom everyone had been informed that the source of the cooties was Deidre, her open mouth and the pool of drool.

The second drool episode happened during the summer before my senior year in college. Because I was taking my English seminar class during the summer, I had to do a lot of reading. Therefore; my friend Amy (who also was taking the seminar class) and I had taken a job at a local jewelry factory because we knew it would be mindless work and leave a lot of brainpower for the reading. Our job was to buff and polish jewelry, fascinating, no? THAT is a story unto itself. I digress; during that summer I was also going through a huge feminism phase and had decided it was not fair that women had to shave their legs and armpits. Again, I know, I’m cute, wicked cute…you know the rest. Any-friggen-way, there I am with my legs unshorn, armpits bushy, buffing and polishing thousands of pieces of jewelry with my mouth wide open. From my peripheral vision it appeared that the guy who sat next to me, Larry, had turned in his seat and was staring at me. I slightly tilted my head in his direction as if to say ‘yes?’ and discovered that he was indeed staring at me. He wasn’t just looking at me; however, he was glaring with disapproval and shaking his head from side to side. I went to ask him why he was staring at me and noticed that I had a line of drool that hung from my lip to my knee gently swaying from side to side. However, the motion of going to talk dislodged the drool and it fell to the floor. I sat and stared at the small pool on the floor. “You know, you need to pull yourself together woman. You’re shaggy, generally unkempt and now you are drooling all over the place. Have some respect for yourself”. Larry was right. I shaved that night.

The last episode that I am going to share with you is also one of the more recent. I work at the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and we just recently hired a new Executive Director, Ari, in August whom I work for directly. He is twenty-six, intelligent and reserved. On his second day here I was in the kitchen area putting the Brita pitcher, which I had just refilled, back into the refrigerator when Ari came around the corner. I went to say “Hey”! But just as I went to say something I felt the familiar weightiness that one feels when they have drool attached to their lip. Yes, there is weightiness. Yes, I am gross. Ari looked at me there was a brief expression of inquisition, then of recognition, disgust and lastly denial. He shot his eyes down to the ground after a brief smile and I just started at the ground and made a strange sound that was neither talking or mumbling and walked to my desk.

I am not sure how to cure myself of this affliction. But I do need some serious help.