Pucker Up And Blow

The One Where El Capitan Grosses Out Half His Audience

This post is going to start with a quick stroll down Memory Lane for all you ex-Band (Insert applicable label of choice here, e.g. Fairies, Geeks, Moose-cocked Studs, etc.) out there. You know who you are, you can still do a perfect 8-to-5 glide step, and often do without realizing it. You catch yourself marking time while waiting in line at Kroger's. You shriek abusive sarcasm from the stands onto the current incarnation of your high school band for their ragged lines and pitiful route marching, 'cause NO pimply herd of snotty punks was as good as YOUR band. You often feel the need to heap scorn upon the Whore Corps Drill Team just on general principles even though you (and they) have been out of high school/college for 20 years now.

Actually, this post is really only for the brass players. All you reed-suckers and hole-blowers, take a seat. Nobody sitting in the bleachers really ever heard y'all make a sound anyway, unless the brass players were taking a breath. OK, maybe the piccolo. Sorry to burst your bubble. Drumline, you cats put the cool in school, so lay down a cadence while I pontificate.

I'm here to talk about "The Numb Lips Effect".

Remember how numb your lips got after a halftime show? Not the mild little tingles you got following a concert in the auditorium, or following a long practice session. I'm talking about the hardcore pins & needles stinging and novocaine-style deadening that you got from really pushing some air through your horn, when you really just blew your guts out. Screw trying to sound good, you were outdoors at the local stadium, just trying for as much volume as possible. Where your sole object in life was to make the popcorn-muncher in the very top bleacher seat spill his Coke down the shorts of the guy in front of him because his brain got jellified due to the massive sonic blast that just hit him in the skull. The sonic blast you've trained years for, that your section leader at Fish Camp nearly burst a blood vessel in his forehead for, screaming at you "BLOW, MAGGOT!!!! BLOOOOOWWWWW!!!!!" as your 13 year old lips struggled to produce even 1/3 of the decibels that the juniors and seniors could produce. The kind of volume that, when the band slid to a final stop at the far hashmark, the bells went up at a 45 degree angle and the final fanfare of that year's Hal Leonard masterpiece went rocketing up in the stands, making that old deaf guy who came to every game piss himself due to the vibrations in the metal seats jiggling his kidneys loose.

THAT kind of volume makes "The Numb Lips Effect".

OK, I took you there to get you here.

Let's say that you contract a minor respiratory tract infection. Mostly clogged sinuses and a few sneezes, but quite a bit of coughing as well, as the post-nasal drip trickles that evil goo down into your bronchial tubes where it can set up residence and fester for a week or so.

Every so often, as a result of your body trying to expel the green slimy demons, you get deep wracking coughs, the kind that make your whole body tense up. The kind that makes your world shut down for a few seconds until the momentary muscle seizure has passed, and your body resumes its regular regimen of oxygen transfer.

Let's say that every so often, you get a cough that's of such force that it's like an electric current being passed through your frontal lobes via your toenails.

It's entirely possible that due to the involuntary muscular contractions occuring at every point in your body all at once, you could, at the time of such a massive earth-shattering cough, (in theory, mind you!) have an unexpected gaseous eruption of such stentorian emphasis and precipitate velocity that the "Numb Lips Effect" is perfectly replicated, albeit at an entirely different orifice.

Numbness, tingling, the whole nine yards.

I'm just sayin', is all.