What the Finns Call, "Sisu"

Sometimes eating regurgitated food, or food smeared across my child’s face, is the only way to get rid of it. Parents know what I’m talking about: baby on my knee, a glob of grape jelly drooling out the corner of her mouth—no napkins, nothing to wipe with.

Times like that I’ve got to make a choice: the kid’s shirt, my own shirt, or my finger. Which means eating it, because I’ve already established there’s nothing to wipe it up with (why I used my finger in the first place).

It's taken me four kids to develop that kind of bravery. But brave as the World’s Sexiest Man is—and bravery is one of the chief characteristics that makes me so damn sexy—there are still some things I may never be brave enough to do. 

I’m talking about bare-fingering a wet booger off my kid's face when there's no Kleenex.

Only a few days ago I was standing in the hallway at church when my friend Brian approaches me, looks at my daughter, says something wonky in that adult baby voice, “Yes you are, yes you are!” then takes his finger and does just that--wipes a giant wet one off her nose and lip that I hadn’t seen.

Giant, like that glob of grape jelly I was talking about—similar in substance, just not the same color.

Confession: the world’s Sexiest Man will never, ever have, what the Spanish call, cojones, big enough to pull off a stunt like that. Wipe a wet booger (or even dry one, for that matter) off the face of somebody else’s kid? With a bare, ungloved finger? Hell, I wouldn’t do it in a Hazmat suit.

And then the story gets better (or maybe worse)—instead of running for the bathroom and screaming at people to get out of the way, my friend walks to the drinking fountain and attempts to wash the booger off his finger, only it’s too sticky to wash off completely, so he ends up rubbing his finger back and forth against the drain of the drinking fountain in an effort to sort of scrape it off—that little drain people have been rinsing their mouths into, spitting their loogies into, all day, all week, for who knows how many months and years.

Now that I’m writing this, I’m beginning to think that the whole episode had more to do with some kind of neurosis my friend must be struggling with than the actual size of his, what the French call, couilles.

I’m so glad I found my way to this conclusion. Another threat to the World’s Sexiest Man identified, analyzed, and dismantled. I’d been worrying about it all week, that my friend has bigger, what the Italians call, coglioni, than me, what the Macedonians call, muda. The Russians, “стальные яйца.”