Do you know what this is?

Several weeks ago I began to notice small greenish/brownish objects stuck to the wall in Mark’s room, right by where he sits to watch movies. The number and volume of those greenish/brownish objects began to grow, until there were quite a few stuck to the wall. At first I really did not pay too much attention to these small objects, but it soon became evident that attention was needed. What was this mysterious substance? Was something growing on my walls? Did I need professional help to deal with said substance? Upon closer inspection it became clear that it was not growing on my walls, my house was not infected with an unknown biological substance, and I probably did not need professional help to deal with said substance. The origin of said substance: Mark’s nose. Yes, it is sick and it is true, said substance is snot. While watching movies in his room Mark likes to engage in a favorite pass time of young and old alike, he picks his nose and then wipes it on the wall. As you can see he is not discriminating in placement of his snot, any free wall space will do. Believe it or not this photograph only captures a portion of the snot on the wall, further down the wall are some very long snot masterpieces he has removed from his nose.


Have you ever tried to remove snot from a wall? I thought I could just flake it off with my fingernail, but noooooo, it is not that easy. I don’t know if you are aware of this but snot has amazing adhesive properties, and cannot be easily chipped away once dried. For successful snot removal one must re-hydrate the snot. This involves taking a wet rag to the snot until said snot has reabsorbed enough moisture to be successfully removed, and transferred to the wet rag. It is not an activity for the faint of heart. I would ask Mark not to pick his nose or at a very minimum if he does, not to put it on the wall, but that would be like asking him not to breath, an impossible task. I will be washing a lot of wet rags.