Mustang Sally

Surely my three year old has elevated nose picking to an art form. He goes at it with the vigor of someone in serious Olympic medal contention. He's not going to be runner up - he's going for the gold.
That is, in fact, what I tell him.
"Stop looking for treasure up your nose."
But alas he does not stop.
Recently he added to the repertoire. Now it's no longer nose picking, it's nose picking and eating. He's in there so much he's giving himself a bloody nose and I think he may be spoiling his appetite to boot.
I considered sticking his fingers in cayenne pepper but it seemed too cruel. Instead I doused them with black pepper and told him if he picked his nose it would make him sneeze.
What kind of threat is that? He thought that was great and what's more, C wanted in on the action. So on that day, instead of discouraging one nose picker, I inadvertently creased a second one. Before you go out and try it let me just say - it doesn't work.
A few days after the black pepper incident, C came home from school and told me that the guidance teacher visited his class and told everyone that they should never pick their nose and eat it because boogers have dirt in them. She then offered them an alternative - ghost boogers. This is putting a Kleenex over a finger and picking with that - when no one is around. Sort of like a finger-picking condom.
Armed with this new information, which must be true because it came from some besides Mommy, C set forth to try and reason with H.
I could hear him in the back of the van.
C: "You shouldn't eat that. That's dirt."
H: "But I like to."
C: "I'm telling you, you're going to get sick. That's dirt."
H: "No it's not."
Do you see the pun in that last sentence? I almost drove off the road I was laughing so hard.

song: Mustang Sally • artist: Wilson Pickett