Science is Cool

I’ve spent the last few days horking up vast quantities of phlegm. I started wondering how the whole process works; I mean, what’s actually happening back there in your throat?

I went to the bathroom and tried to look at myself in the mirror during a snort/hork. It’s really dark in there (my throat, not the bathroom… I have lights in the bathroom). So I took out my little compact mirror (which I received for free with a box of Q-tips and would never have purchased on its own) and reflected the bathroom lights into my gaping, shadowy piehole.

First things first: my mouth is uuuuugly! I couldn’t really tell what was going on, as there are all these weird foldy, flappy, dangly bits that bob down, and suck shut at different times. I spent a few moments in awe of how my tongue seems to pop up-and-back to close off my throat whenever I tried to breathe through my nose. Cool!

My conclusion was that in horking, one snorts a wad of snot into one’s throat (the tongue closes the mouth off), and before it slides into one’s stomach, one uses a forceful cough (with a now-open mouth) to propel the phlegm up onto the tongue. What one does at this point is up to one.

It’s too bad I didn’t give this whole examination more thought; if I’d had more foresight, I could’ve procured some scientific funding like these clowns.