Messing with magazines can be dangerous while driving a car, but not for the obvious reason.
I was driving a carful, and my sister, sitting in the back seat, was thumbing through a magazine and came across one of those cologne-sniff ads. “Hey, I like this,” she said.
Being a careful driver but curious cologne hunter, I asked her to pass the open magazine under my nose so I could render a judgment. I couldn’t get quite a good enough position for a healthy sniff, so I tried to maneuver my nose while keeping my eyes on the road.
Finally, frustrated at smelling ink but no cologne, I just said, “Uh-huh,” and she quickly withdrew the magazine. What followed was one of the moments when all the forces of nature and physics come together to create a small miracle. That buzz saw of a cologne ad sliced a perfect quarter-inch-long paper cut into the tip of my nose. It’s amazing how much a nose cut can bleed, by the way.
The wound showed clearly for three full days, and I absolutely don’t care if I ever find out what that stuff smells like.
