Blood
I was about 12 and was in the middle of a two days sitting in the back of my parents' car with my brothers as they drove us through France back to the ferry. We stopped off for the night at a crumbling old hotel in a small town. The rooms were dusty and the linen and furniture ancient.

All the dust must have set off a sneezing fit, as I was woken up in the middle of the night by nasal explosions every few seconds. I sat up in bed sneezing for a few minutes, but after a while I felt clear liquid snot escaping from my nose, so I decided to go to the bathroom to get a tissue and clean myself up.

Unfortunately, the room was pitch dark, the only light switch was by the door, and I was on the other side of the room from the bathroom. So I got out of bed, still sneezing violently every few seconds, and felt my way along the walls to the bathroom door. Upon switching on the light I saw that it wasn’t snot. The sneezing had burst a blood vessel and it was cascading out my nose with every sneeze.

After much work with wet tissues the bleeding stopped, I cleaned myself up, and I went back to sleep. Next morning my brothers and I were greeted with a pretty gruesome sight: my bed, the floor, and the walls leading to the bathroom were all covered with a fine spray of blood. It looked like a scene from Dexter.

My parents took the cowardly way out; they checked out early and left a big tip to the somewhat surprised manager. God knows what he thought had gone on when he saw the room.
(woodchopper likes chopping wood, Fri 7 Jan 2011, 22:10, Reply)