Booger Half Life?

June 8, 2011 11:52 AM

How long does it take for dried nasal mucus (i.e. boogers) to disintegrate? I mean, to where the untrained human eye would not know that the dried nasal mucus (i.e. boogers) were ever there. Um, asking for a friend.
posted by sandmanwv to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Best answer: Uh, they - allegedly - break down into a rosin-like dust eventually, but a good sized nostril nugget will take a long time to do so. I'm told, that is.
posted by scruss at 12:29 PM on June 8, 2011

Best answer: Long enough for someone to notice it before it disintegrates. Have your friend start carrying a small packet of tissues with them and ask them to stop wiping boogers on peoples walls and carpets.
posted by zephyr_words at 12:37 PM on June 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

There's a wad of what I am certain is bloody booger on the wall of the men's washroom at my workplace. It's got the streaking from where it was wiped off a finger, and has a short black hair embedded in it. I expect it will outlast me, being as we are all playing a game where we pretend not to notice the reddish-yellow lump at eye level on the wall above the john.

It's been there, unchanged, since I started my job five months ago.
posted by Sternmeyer at 4:07 PM on June 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's been there, unchanged, since I started my job five months ago.

Ew, this reminded me of a similar masterpiece in my office's building. It lasted about a year, unchanged, until somebody scraped it off, along with a piece of the wall.
posted by clearlydemon at 5:41 PM on June 8, 2011

Use a scrap piece of cardboard as an implement. Whack that thing into a corner. Dispose of cardboard.

I mean, it's not radioactive. Germ-wise, it might even be benign compared to actual bathroom surfaces you touch.
posted by dhartung at 10:15 PM on June 8, 2011