For lovers of the German sneeze (M)

[atchoum]

This was at the Tutanchamun exhibition in Basel on Saturday. The exhibition had just opened, and the visitors were still queueing up to see the first exhibits when I heard a soft though unstifled, dry sneeze, the sort of sneeze that is hard to identify as coming from a man or a woman – or even a child. The queue was moving on when I saw shoulders hunch half a dozen people in front of me, and : another sneeze ! not quite so dry and a bit louder. The queue moved round a corner and I found myself within armslength of the sneezer : a man in his early twenties, clear complexion and wavy fair hair, nice strong nose. His wife/girlfriend was just offering him a kleene, which he took, but did not use straight away, but soon he tensed up, averted his head, and sneezed much more wetly into the kleenex. Obviously he did not want to miss that third sneeze ! He then blew his nose softly… and that was it. But it was interesting to notice how the sneezes increased in strength (say from 4 to 5 to 6 on the 1 to 10 Beaufort scale) and in wetness, the third being the most unfettered, perhaps because he felt he could let rip into the kleenex.

Later on during the exhibition I found myself near them and found they were speaking German German (not Swiss German). At one stage I heard a dry sneeze, and it turned out to be our German friend again. This time though there were no other sneezes, so my theory that he must be a three-time sneezer went out the window. We actually got into conversation later on, but I couldnt think of how to bring the conversation back to the sneezes, by then a couple of hours old !