An Arizona resident was met with an unexpected surprise when they blew their nose in the shower recently.
Andi Norton, 32, who also goes by the name Ben Havoc, explained in an Instagram clip shared on Sept. 2 that they’d shoved a Lego piece up their nose when they were age “six or so” in the ’90s. However, despite their mom previously thinking she’d got it out, it turned out that a piece of it remained in Norton’s nostril for the next 26 years, and they only just realized it was there.
“My doctor has told me, with the dry hot summer months, it’s really helpful to blow your nose while you’re in the shower, because the humidity of the steam and everything,” Norton shared in the clip.
“It really helps kind of clear everything out,” they added, saying they’d been “regularly doing this for the last six months or so.”
“My whole life I’ve had sinus sensitivity, allergies, and issues with congestion,” the social media user told Newsweek. “Since I am allergic to cats, dogs, grass, many of the native trees and dust, and I’ve always been exposed to one or more of these things, I lived my life assuming any congestion issues were just simply caused by the allergies.”
Norton, who also shared a snap of the Lego piece on Reddit, says that his
, “My initial thought with the thing flying out was that I had somehow hurt myself, or blown out a mass of something that wasn’t supposed to come out. The sound it made my initial thought was it was rock or maybe a tooth?”
They add that “After cleaning it off, the way the Lego memory came rushing back to me was kind of like the movie Rattatouille when the food critic gets transported in his mind to his childhood. I immediately had to show my partners!”
While speaking in the aforementioned Instagram clip, Norton revealed they’d had “multiple breathing issues” through the years, such as asthma and sleep apnea and they think the Lego piece “has been the culprit for the last 26 years of my life.”
“I’m shooketh,” they admitted on Instagram, revealing they were planning to take the Lego piece to their doctor.
“I can breathe out of this side of my nose now, and it’s fantastic,” Norton said. “I haven’t been able to do that since I was a child.”
They said that as a child, their mom had grabbed a pair of tweezers at the time and fished out the Lego head they’d put up their nose in a bid to make a Lego man and try and pull the whole thing out.
“The Lego head popped off, so that was also stuck in my nose,” Norton recalled of the Lego rescue attempt.
“Honestly, it felt like a plug came out and I had a great rush of relief,” Norton told Newsweek of finding the toy after so long, admitting they’re planning to hold on to it as a “silly keepsake,” per the publication.
“I had no idea this was going to get so big,” Norton t of the responses to the story on social media. “My partners said I should post the story just for a funny laugh, because it’s so far out there that all you really can do to react is laugh. The original Reddit post hit 4 million views before a mod had to move it since it no longer fit the r/mildlyinteresting category- this was far too interesting! It’s become such a silly joke now with all my friends and family, all poking lighthearted fun about it.”
