News & Features » May 2016 » “Up His Nose His Finger Goes” by Sarah Acord

“Up His Nose His Finger Goes” by Sarah Acord

Are you a parent going through the Terrible Twos? Did you live through them and survive? Terrible Twosdays is a place to commiserate over the unending shenanigans of your Darling Children (as the online parenting communities say). Nonfiction stories will be considered, so long as names have been changed to protect the guilty. Inspired by our best-selling gift book for parents, Go the Fuck to Sleep, Terrible Twosdays joins the roster of our other online short fiction series. Unlike Mondays Are Murder and Thursdaze, we’re looking for stories with a light and mischievous feel, all about the day-to-day challenges of parenting. As with our other flash fiction series, stories must not exceed 750 words.

This week, Sarah Acord teaches life lessons through rhyme.

Up His Nose His Finger Goes
by Sarah Acord
Five

There is a boy with dark brown hair,
He loves slugs, ice cream, and pretending to be a bear.
He is silly, smart, but not too self-aware.
He picks his nose most everywhere.

In the park, in the sand,
Bill can only use one hand,
For, you probably understand,
The other’s occupied in boogerland.

Rivers of snot and boogers woes.
Using tissues, one can oppose.
But no matter what, he never blows,
And up his nose his finger goes!

At school, at his desk, he cannot learn about
The horrors of a weird disease called gout,
Because there is something more important, no doubt,
Shoved far up the back of his snout.

Again and again, they tried to make him stop,
They begged and pleaded, they even called a cop!
But no matter what, it was a flop.
The poor boy just picked his nose nonstop!

Here is something to make you shriek:
Once he spent an entire week,
A world record–breaking streak,
With his finger hunting around his beak!

Rivers of snot and boogers woes.
Using tissues, one can oppose.
No matter what, he never blows,
And up his nose his finger goes!

I can’t imagine what he is trying to find,
Magic beans, chocolate, or treasure of some kind?
To his nose (and those around him) it is most unkind.
There’s not so many boogers in the world combined.

He picked his nose on a trip to the zoo.
Some of the animals picked up his cue,
and wouldn’t you know it—monkey see, monkey do!
At least for a minute, they stopped throwing poo.

Only a few things could distract Bill from his nostrils.
Something really exciting, like blueberry waffles,
Mysterious dinosaur fossils,
Or big, engorged, and dangerous tonsils.

Now his mom was not a yeller.
In fact, she was quite quirky and stellar,
But when she caught him sifting through his smeller,
She yearned to lock him in the cellar.

He misses out on so much cool junk,
Like cheese at the farmer’s market that stunk,
And the final basketball game slam dunk,
With his hand forever digging through his trunk.

Maybe he did not know of another way
To clear out his nasal passageway,
And that’s why he picked day after day,
From morning until it was time to hit the hay.

Rivers of snot and boogers woes.
Using tissues, one can oppose.
But no matter what, he never blows,
And up his nose his finger goes!

His babysitter Suzy decided to commit.
She took him out for a banana split
And urged him to please, please quit,
Because picking your nose in public is quite unfit.

It is a simple social grace
To not have your finger in your face.
The act is not polite at it’s base,
But I know it fits perfectly into place.

Bill liked his schnoz to feel clean.
He loved the color “booger green.”
But he was smart and able to glean
How his nose picking was making a scene.

But how was Bill to keep his olfactory organ clear?
Putting water up there seemed rather queer.
His shirt was always very near.
He was lost on this no nose-picking frontier.

Rivers of snot and boogers woes.
Using tissues, one can oppose.
No matter what, he never blows,
And up his nose his finger goes!
But
It’s so easy, how could it miss you?
There’s no issue with a tissue!

To stop the pick and begin to blow,
Just how to start he did not know,
Until his classmate Birdy, who was a pro,
Demonstrated for him nice and slow.

And huzzah! Blowing your nose is kind of fun.
It sounds just like an elephant on the run,
And there’s no more snot on his hamburger bun,
Making it a lot more sanitary in the long run.

The change he made was very brave.
Now he could climb and jump and color and wave.
Bill’s hands were free from the nostril cave,
No longer trapped as booger slaves.

Now he blows his nose,
And that he chose
Because
Its so easy, how could it miss you?
There’s no issue with a tissue!

Blowing into a tissue is a nifty trick,
It really is more clean and quick,
Making it harder to get sick,
And alone in his room he still likes to pick.

***

SARAH ACORD is a California native. After her undergraduate education, she taught English in Be’er Sheva, Israel, for a year. Upon becoming the queen of hummus and riding a camel, she moved to Philadelphia for a social justice fellowship and is newly involved in real estate. Sarah is currently creating a series on decorum for dummies: a collection of picture books for children teaching them important life lessons in rhyme. Geared toward both kids and their parents, these are a wonderful way to start a conversation about anything from not picking your nose in public, to trying new foods, and being nice to your siblings! “Up His Nose His Finger Goes” is the first in this series.

***

Do you have a story you’d like us to consider for online publication in the Terrible Twosdays flash fiction series? Here are the submission terms and guidelines:

—We are not offering payment, and are asking for first digital rights. The rights to the story revert to the author immediately upon publication.
—Your story should focus on the challenges of parenting. Ideally, stories should be about children aged 0 to 5, but any age (up to early teens) is acceptable. Stories may be fiction or nonfiction.
—Include the child’s age at the time of the story next to your byline.
—Your story should not exceed 750 words.
—E-mail your submission to info@akashicbooks.com. Please paste the story into the body of the email, and also attach it as a PDF file.

Posted: May 24, 2016

Category: Original Fiction, Terrible Twosdays | Tags: age five, fiction, five, flash fiction, Go the Fuck to Sleep, GTFTS, Sarah Acord, short fiction, Terrible Twosdays, Up His Nose His Finger Goes