Do I Have Something in My Teeth?

Many, many years ago my family happened upon a clip from one of the Ace Ventura movies where Ace Ventura (Jim Carrey) has asparagus hanging from his mouth. He asks, "Do I have something in my teeth?"  We thought it was hilarious and reenacted it often at the dinner table.

While this obvious caricature of having something in your teeth is funny, it is not always quite so funny when it happens in real life and no one informs you of the offending object.  To help with these situations and others like it my family has developed some code words to clue in a loved one without cluing in everyone in the room.  "Asparagus" and "Brussel Sprouts" are code for "You have something in your teeth."  Or for the more mortifying booger exposed, "Bats in the Belfry" is the hint that should encourage you to wipe your nose very carefully.

This week I was substituting at the high school for one of the math teachers, something I do about once a month.  About 20 minutes into one class period, after I had given a lesson and been walking around helping students for awhile, one young man says from across the room, "Miss, you have something in your nose."  I reached up to wipe it off and asked if it was gone and it wasn't yet.  It took a few tries before the booger was eliminated from general view.  This entire time the whole class is watching me.  I asked if it was there the whole time I had been teaching.  He replied in the affirmative.  The poor girls in the class were so distressed for me that they kept denying that it had been there at all and whispered to him that he shouldn't have told me because it was embarrassing for me.  However, I had the booger in a tissue to prove it.  I was extremely flustered and trying to act like it was no problem but above all I was really glad he had told me so that I didn't walk around for the rest of class like that.

"Bats in the Belfry" discreetly whispered to me would have been a better way to handle the situation, but he didn't know the code word.  I genuinely thanked Fernando for informing me of the problem.

If you ever see a problem with my teeth, nose, zipper, or otherwise potentially embarrassing predicament, please tell me.  Even if you don't know the code word for it.  I will thank you.