Booger Man by Erin Hayman and Frances Hayman Smith
Finished: 11-11-97
E-mail:  eeh3@ra.msstate.edu (Erin)  
         fi.smith@gte.net (Frances)
Classification:  Vignette, Humor
Rating:  G
Summary:  You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, 
but you can't pick your friend's nose.  Or can you?
Spoilers:  None.  But this is pre-"Memento Mori" and Scully
does have a desk here.
Warning:  If you have a phobia about mucous, you might want
to skip this.
Authors' notes:  This little piece was written late at night, under
the influence of antihistamines and Butterfingers.  We really put
our noses to the grindstone for this one!  This is dedicated to our
inspiration, our brother, Truett.
Distribution:  Okay to distribute as long as our names stay with it.
Disclaimer:  Mulder, Scully, Skinner and the X-Files belong to
Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox.  Nintendo and any related games don't
belong to us either.  No copyright infringement intended.

Booger Man

Scully sat in the dark basement office amid a mound of never ending
paperwork.  Looking at the clock again, she wondered how she 
always got stuck with this.  Mulder was now over half an hour late.
She knew he would have some sort of excuse, but she was sure he
was only trying to avoid his share of this drudgery.  

The door suddenly swung open and in swept Mulder.  "Sorry I'm
late, Scully.  I went running in the park this morning and there was
this little boy who was lost and I had to help him find his mother and --"
He looked over at Scully as he hung up his coat, trying to judge her
mood.  The withering look she sent his way stopped the wandering
diatribe.  "Uh, sorry I'm late."  He cautiously approached the desk
and stopped just behind her right shoulder.  "What are you working on?"

Scully looked up, about to blast him for making her start these reports
alone, when she noticed It.  With a capital I.  There It was, hanging just
out of his left nostril, moving slightly in and out with each breath, a huge
booger.  The rhythm was almost hypnotic.  All words died on her lips as 
she stared, wondering how he could not know it was there.  "Uhh," she
stammered as she pulled her eyes from his nose, "just reports from our
last case.  Umm, ah, here."  She shoved a pile of forms at him.  "Why
don't you get started on these."

Mulder looked carefully at Scully.  "Sure."  He took the forms and moved
to his desk.  "Hey, Scully, are you okay?"  He thought she looked a little
green.

"I'm fine, Mulder.  Just not really looking forward to all this," she said,
motioning to the paper strewn desk.  *Why doesn't he wipe his nose!*

"Okay."  He sat down and rummaged through his desk drawer.

Scully reached over and pulled a tissue out of the box on her desk.
"Looking for a tissue, Mulder?"  *Please say yes!*

"No, I'm looking for a pen.  Ah, here's one."  He removed the cap
and settled in to work.

Scully sighed, put the tissue down, and angled her chair away from
Mulder.  If she was going to get any work done, she was going to
have to look the other way.  Just then, Mulder stretched his long arms,
and leaned his head back.  "Hey, Scully."

Scully looked around.  *Oh, no.  Now It really looks huge!*  "What,
Mulder?"  She tried not to look at his nose.

"When, exactly does all this have to be finished?"

"Skinner wants it by tomorrow morning at the latest," she said, turning
swiftly back to her work, unconsciously wiping at her own nose.

Twenty minutes passed in relative silence, but Scully couldn't stop 
thinking about It. *What if Skinner calls us up to his office?  Can I let
him go like that?  Would it just add to the 'Spooky' mystique or would
he have a new nickname like, perhaps, 'Boogerman'?*  Scully shook
her head.  *How do you tactfully tell someone to pick their nose?*

"Mulder, you know those signs that people used to have on their cars
that said 'Baby on Board' and things like that?"

"Yeah."  He sat up a little straighter.  "Scully, you're not trying to tell
me something, are you?"

She frowned, wondering how he could have gotten her 'message' out of
that, when she realized what he meant.   "Oh, not that, Mulder!"

Mulder sighed and sank back into his chair.  "Yeah, I know the signs.
What about them?"  *Jeez, she almost gave me heart failure!*

"I saw one on an old truck this morning, but it had a slightly different
message.  It said, 'Don't get too close or  I'll flick a booger on your
windshield'."  She chuckled a little as Mulder laughed, then stared
at her.  "I guess it just struck me as funny for some reason this morning."
She shrugged and turned away from him again.  *Oh, well, that didn't
exactly go as planned.  Hmmm.  Time for another idea.*

"Mulder, are you feeling all right?"

"Yeah, I feel fine."

"Are you sure you're not coming down with something, like a cold?"

"No, like I said, I feel fine.  Why?"

"Ah, you just look tired.  And you know there's a really bad cold
going around.  Skinner's got it and he sounds awful."  *And because
you've got a monster booger in your nose!*

"I'm okay, really." He looked at the half-filled out forms, wondering
what had gotten into Scully.

*Another attempt foiled!  Now what?*  Scully tapped her pen on the
desk, thinking.  "Hey, Mulder, you have a Super Nintendo, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm thinking about getting an N64 system.  The graphics are
awesome!"

"My nephews have a Super Nintendo, and they had this new game
with them at Mom's this weekend called 'Booger Man' or something
like that.  Have you seen it?"

Mulder's eyes got wide.  "I think so.  Isn't that the one where the 
character's weapons are, ah, shall we say, slightly different from
most games?"

"Yeah, that's the one.  Doesn't he use boogers and farts?"

The look of surprise on Mulder's face was so comical, Scully
almost laughed.  "Yes," he said, "I believe he does."

"The boys really loved it, but Mom gave Bill  a lot of grief about
buying it for them."

"I'll bet," said Mulder, trying to picture Mrs. Scully playing "Booger
Man".  He shook his head.

"The boys had a lot of jokes to tell me, too," said Scully, glancing
sideways at Mulder.  "Want to hear one?"

"Uh, sure.  Why not?"  He laid his paperwork aside.

Scully smiled, wondering how she was going to get through this
ordeal!  "Okay."  She took a deep breath.  "What do you find in
a clean nose?"

"I don't know, Scully.  What?"

"Fingerprints."

Mulder laughed. "I'll bet the guys in the fingerprint lab would love
that one!"

*Well, that didn't work either.  Maybe I could try telepathy.  
Concentrate, Scully, concentrate.  MULDER YOU HAVE A
BOOGER IN YOUR NOSE!*  She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing
her thoughts.  After a moment, she stopped and looked over at him.
*Nothing!  Darn!*

"Mulder, when I was in medical school, one semester we had to do
a paper on anything we wanted, as long as our advisor approved it--"

"What did you do yours on, Scully?"

"Oh, mine was on anticoagulant rodenticides, but I had this friend --"

"Rat poison, Scully?"

"Yes.  Well, we had a rather large rodent problem in the apartments
where I lived at the time.  Anyway, I had this friend that had
really bad allergies, and she wanted to do hers on 'Where Does
All That Snot Come From?'"

Mulder laughed, wondering again, what had gotten into Scully
this morning.  He had never heard her talk quite so much about,
ah, mucous, outside a case.  "Did she?"

"No, her advisor wouldn't approve the 'topic'.  But she did have
an interesting theory." She waited and was rewarded with his 
eyebrow raised question.  "She thought it was liquefactive necrosis
of the brain."

This time Mulder really laughed.  "Is it?"

"No.  No, it's snot."

Mulder clutched his stomach and had to work hard not to fall out
of his chair.  "Scully, I'm seeing a whole new side of you this morning!"

*Well, at least he's amused.  But he's still got that booger!*  As soon as
his snickers died down, she continued.  "You know, that same friend's
fiancé hurt his knee pretty bad playing basketball."

Mulder winced, wondering what this had to do with any of the previous
comments.  "Bet that was painful."

"Yes, it was.  By the time we hauled him into the ER, his knee was
really swollen.  They immediately shot him full of pain meds.  Later,
he told us about the doctor that examined him first in the ER.  He
could never remember his name, but he did remember that when he
looked up at the man, all he could see was this huge booger in his
nose.  From that point on, he referred to him as 'Dr. Boogernose'."

That sent Mulder into another paroxysm of laughter.  His face was
getting red, and Scully was holding onto the hope that all that
laughter would dislodge the offending hunk of mucous.  But It
just hung there.  She sighed, again, and tried to focus on the 
paperwork.  Every few minutes Mulder started chuckling again,
shaking his head and looking over his glasses at Scully.

*Oh, well, the subtle approach isn't working!*

"Mulder, my nephews had something else they kept telling
everyone."

"What was that, Scully?"

"I'm sure you've heard it before."  She paused, gathering courage.
She picked up a tissue and walked toward Mulder.  "Well,
Mulder, you can pick your friends --"

"Yeah, I know this one.  Let's see, the rest of it goes, 'You can 
pick your nose.  But you can't pick your friend's nose.'"

"Except for now," she said, holding out the tissue. "Either you
do it, or I will.!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Mulder, you ARE 'Dr. Boogernose'!"

"What?"  He frowned, then reddened as understanding dawned.
"Oh!  Now I understand all these jokes and things!"  He took the
tissue.  "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"I think I just did, Mulder!"

THE END

More author's notes:  Now we know that about half way through
this, you checked your own nose!  But everything came out all 
right, didn't it!

Frances (fi.smith@gte.net) and Erin (eeh3@ra.msstate.edu)