Older woman at work with a hanky

[Heathcliff]

Disclaimer: This obs is not great, but (I hope) worth reporting just for the rare sight of a woman using a handkerchief.

Obs: I had to attend a series of presentations at work this afternoon; this woman was speaking at the first one. A North American woman of about fifty, with greying dark hair that was naturally very curly. She was quite big and curvy, from the effects of middle-age spread; she wore a blue/green dress under a black woolen cardigan.

At one point in the presentation, someone was asking a question, and she pulled an off-white (or maybe pale cream) handkerchief from the pocket of her cardigan. It was fully unfolded and very crumpled; clearly a hanky that had been used often that day, and always stuffed into the pocket without being folded. She gave her nose a quick one-handed wipe, and a very quiet blow, before returning the hanky to her pocket.

Later, the woman had re-taken her seat in the audience, and someone else was speaking. Suddenly, I heard a sneeze from behind me. Not a very exciting sneeze- not too loud, it sounded like a cough-like sneeze that had been muffled, something like "Hhh-PPfff!" (but not at all vocal, so very difficult to spell).

I looked round towards the noise, just pretending to be looking round the room in boredom. I saw the woman with her crumpled handkerchief in one hand again, rubbing at her nose with it. As she was sitting behind me, there was no way I could continue watching her, so I faced the front again.

About twenty seconds later, I heard another "Pffff!" from behind me. Someone else glanced towards the sound, so I did too. I saw the same performance of wiping one nostril, then the other with the handkerchief. I realised that she must have kept it in her hand between the sneezes, perhaps feeling the second one coming and holding the hanky ready to catch it.

Despite the fact that I didn't find her attractive, I rather enjoyed the thought of that.

[Hankysneeze]

Lovley obs heathcliff thanks for sharing

[Heathcliff]

By the way, I recently posted another (much better) obs of this woman, which can be found in this thread.

It features some more nice handkerchief use; but I liked the sneezing itself so much, I decided to put it on the regular obs board. If you haven't seen it before, you might enjoy it.