when my mother was young she was sitting at the kitchen table helping my grandmother prepare little black beans for dinner. my grandmother, for no good reason, warns my mother not to put beans up her nose. they continue working. in a little while my mother gets up and leaves the room. she returns a bit later, her nose and eyes red, crying. it seems she snuck some beans in her pocket, went into the other room, and immediately stuck them up her nose. she couldn't get the last one out. years later she tells me this story as we're shelling peas in the kitchen. and now, the punchline: seems when my *grandmother* was young.....she was playing a game with her brother. they were using tiny black stones for markers. her brother told her: don't put the stones up your nose. she stuck some of the stones up her nose; when she tried to remove the last two she couldn't, and they had to take her to the doctor to have them removed.

no one in the family knows whether or not my great-grandmother ever stuck beans up her nose. Did I, myself, stick beans up my nose at some point? I think you know the answer to that question.

return to cynsa beans