My Diapers

I guess it all started with my big nose and the crooked septum that splits it right down the middle.  It's gross I know but this condition keeps me in a non-stop low grade sinus infection.  I went through the horrors of trying to fix it surgically a few years ago.  It helped a little, but as the doc said as he stuck a 6 inch metal suction straw up my nose and deep into a sinus cavity I didn't even know I had,  "I found it was much worse once I got in there.  I did the best I could but it's still deviated and going to cause you problems."  Yes.  The problem is that my nose runs all the time.  

What does all this mean to a runner?  Well, let's just say when I go for a run and  get everything all warmed up inside and add some heavy breathing - the condition worsens.  The harder I run, the faster I go, the snottier I get.  The cold of winter adds yet another dimension to the situation.  No, there is nothing attractive about my running and running nose.   

Some wiping adjunct was needed. 

Well, early on I found I could take some type hanky or tissue with me.  Kleenex fell apart right away and you couldn't wipe your forehead with it so that was out.  I still had some old hankies in the bottom of my sock drawer and at first ran with these for a bit.  But let's face it, these sheer linen squares, these throw backs to the sixties, these monogramed relics of our grandfathers generation (to the point of being a garnish to his three piece suit) have always been awful at their intended mission and in this case totally inadequate for real nasal drippings.

  

So what to do?  A small hand towel seemed the answer and so I went with that.  Small, absorbent and ubiquitous, surely this was the way to go.  And so it was for the better part of a year.  During this time I was running a lot with my friend Bob and he would poke fun of the object usually held in my right hand referring to it as my "moist towelette".  So be it.  I considered it a necessity and it worked pretty good.  

But one day my face was feeling particularly chaffed, perhaps from shaving or maybe from being outside, but a little sensitive.  So instead of grabbing just any hand towel I went to the linen closet in search of the most supple.  A towel that would be the least irritating.  

But all of them seemed pretty rough.  Dish towels were a little better but the wife would have a hissy fit if I tried taking those out for a run.  So I dug deeper.  And deeper. And then lo and behold I found just what I was looking for!  Buried deep in the closet, way back on the left and down on a shelf near the floor was a stack of old cloth baby diapers!  Sitting there for 10 years, hidden, waiting for the next little bundle of joy that we never did have, were a good 8 or 9 perfectly sized, wonderfully absorbent, gentle on my face cloth baby diapers!  Come to papa you little poop blankets and let me snot all over ya.  

And so RUNS WITH A DIAPER was born (I have a thing for native american culture and oneof  my favorite jokes ends with the punch line "so tell me, why do you ask Two Dogs F__ing").  And in a way I feel I'm doing something green by reusing what would have otherwise been thrown away.  Sometimes it's very green.  Ah gross!

So when I'm doing laundry and washing my running clothes there will away be a small stack of diapers sitting on top.