Did you hear about the woman who saved her life by “letting her nose do the walking?”

Sorry, no punch line. It really happened. A woman in Denver, who wished to go unnamed, dialed 911 with her nose because that’s all she could use at the time.

She was a victim of sort of a sadistic crime. An intruder tied her up and ransacked the house, an article stated. But before leaving, the nut turned on the gas oven, closed the windows and lit a candle in the living room where she was tied to a chair. He was hoping for an explosion – not her getting away alive.

The woman tipped over the chair and grabbed the phone with her teeth before using her nose to dial 911. At least she only had to press three numbers and not seven, and it wasn’t a dial phone. And it’s a good thing it didn’t happen last year in DeKalb since we just got the 911 service.

It just goes to show you that what you have is usually taken for granted until something comes up – maybe not this bizarre – that hits you in the face (ha) and makes you realize how important what you have is.

C’mon, you’re saying. Why should we appreciate our noses because some chick saved her life using hers? The nose is not the biggest thing to be proud of, for most of us anyway. Look at Sylvester Stallone and Barbara Streisand – their noses will go down in history as true classics.

What’s its purpose anyway? Sure, it’s a dumb question, but do you know the answer? Why don’t we all just have two little breathing holes on our faces? That would solve some sinus problems, wouldn’t it? And it really wouldn’t look weird if we never saw a nose before—it’d be the norm.

Maybe God gave us noses because he foresaw an age where nose earrings would be the thing to do. But probably not, that’s why He gave us earlobes. And people are piercing unmentionable body parts, too, nowadays.

Without noses, what would we women say when we want to go to the bathroom? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say, like in the movies: “I’ve got to go powder my nose.” You guys know that’s not what we’re really doing and why we can never go alone, right?

Women can’t use sayings that men do when they go to the bathroom. “I gotta ring it out,” “I gotta water the porcelain flowerbed,” or “I gotta take a whiz/squirt/leak,” wouldn’t sound too feminine, now would it? But some of use similar sayings.

Who knows why we have noses—who knows why we have hairy armpits for that matter. Whatever the reason, if there is one, there’s one woman who probably thanks her lucky stars every night ever since her nose and quick thinking saved her life. It’s an extreme case that goes to show you a very important idea: Appreciate what you have while you have it because someday you might not have it. (Got it?)

There are some people who have legs, arms, eyes or ears but not the use of them. If that’s you, all the more power to ya for sticking it out and carrying on, hopefully realizing you could be worse off.

All of us love to criticize ourselves. So you don’t have the biggest muscles or the sexiest legs or the whitest teeth. You hate your hair, you’re too fat, you have stubby little fingers and your face is crooked. Wouldn’t you feel worse if you didn’t have teeth, hair, fingers or a face?