Spitting off the Peak of Mount Wannahockaloogie

Warning: The following blog contains grossly explicit details of an organic nature. Read at your own risk!

The cold and flu season is now upon us, and I, like millions of other Homo sapiens on the planet have fallen victim to its deadly lysogenic cycle. (Egads! Lysogenic isn't even accepted on the spell checker!)

As I wetly squelch, cough and blow my way through a box of lotioned kleenex, I contemplate the etiquette and art of hocking a loogie. It was a much needed skill that my father taught me along side the proud art of making farting noises with my armpit. Even my dear beloved samurai can't spit one like I can.

Etiquette. Of hocking a loogie. At some point in our miserable disease-ridden state, any and ALL of us feel the desire to hack one up, don't we? Yet in our society of being prim and proper, it's better to drown in our own pathogenic juices and gag on our giant green balls of mucus than to just cough, hock and spit. We can't even do it in public bathrooms because of the echo!

What's more... when men spit one in public, it's socially frowned upon, but no one dwells on it. Yeah, it's a disgusting habit, but what else can you expect, right? Yet when a woman hocks the big one, she might as well release a loud atomic methane fart to go along with it since it wouldn't be any less shocking or...unnatural. *gasp* People don't EXPECT grossly biological noises from the supposedly more gentile sex, right? But... don't we have respiratory and digestive systems, too???

Needless to say, even my samurai feels a bit intimidated when I go into the bathroom in the morning and "do my thing," to the chagrin of the entire household since I can be so loud. But hey...when you've gotta hock a loogie, you've gotta hock a loogie! Might as well get it done and over with before...heaven forbid.... others find out about your phlegm!

Here's some interesting factioids on phlegm. I wikied this because I was morbidly curious as to why doctors are so interested in the color of your sputum. The next time you stare at that goopy, protein and pathogen laden lump of saliva-coated gel congealed at the bottom of your sink, think:

Clear or white = healthy unless you are in the early initial stages of sickness. In which case, your phlegm baby is not only clear, but infectious as well!

Yellow = tends to indicate a bacterial infection. Although this isn't always be the case.

Green = sign of infection

Green with red spots or rust red phlegm = signs of infection and possibly pneumonia! It's "rusty" means that you might be bleeding deep in there.

Bloody = first off, go to your doctor! You could have cancer, tuberculosis or something as "minor" as bronchitis. We aren't certified sputologists here, so it's important to get other tests done to make sure!

Brown and brownish grey = STOP SMOKING! That's only a sample of the crap that your body's trying to clear up from those cancer sticks your sucking on. Can we say, ewwwww?


The caption from wikipedia says: Phlegm with a Canadian quarter for scale.
No, this is NOT a picture my own personal phlegm. Mine's green right now if you really wanted to know...