How to Use a Neti Pot Without Dying

It’s just a matter of overcoming your instinctive and completely legitimate fear of drowning

Whenever I see someone with a cold or allergies sneezing and snorfling into a tissue, I immediately ask them, “Have you ever used a neti pot?”

Not one single person has ever responded, “Yes, I use a neti pot regularly. It really helps a lot! Thank you for asking. It’s nice someone cares about my well-being. Would you like to be friends? Here’s my number!”

Instead, they usually say, “No thanks, I don’t like water up my nose” or “GROSS!” or “Lady, I’m just trying to ride the bus in peace.”

But I’m here to tell you that a neti pot is one of the wonders of ancient civilization. We should sing the praises of the first person who looked at a teapot and thought, “I should fill that with water and snort it up my nose to clean mucus and bacteria out my sinus cavities.”

This idea was much better than using a twig to brush your teeth, or pulling a string through your sinuses, or any of the other ancient remedies that for some reason haven’t caught on.

Rest assured, using a neti pot is nothing like pulling a string through your nose and out your mouth. Or vice versa.

Using a neti pot is just like drowning, except you’re not drowning.

In other words, using a neti pot is like being waterboarded, except you’ll feel much better afterwards and the CIA is almost never involved.

In fact, you’ll feel so good, you’ll wonder why you never waterboarded yourself before — you’ll want to tell everybody you meet how great being waterboarded is.

There’s nothing like having your skull flushed out with saline to really make you feel alive.

The key word here is “saline”. The water you use in the neti pot should be at least room temperature, and if you really need to wake up fast, you can choose not to use the little salt packets that come with it.

Salt acts as a “buffering” agent. That means the distilled water you’re about to shoot up your nose, which otherwise looks so harmless, won’t strip away your mucus membranes, throw them on the ground, and then stomp on them.

You may be tempted to use plain tap water, but between the brain-eating amoebas and the searing pain, I strongly advise you to follow the directions.

And whatever you do, DO NOT blow your nose immediately after using a neti pot. Somehow that pushes the remaining water up into your ear canals and I’m guessing that’s bad.

From repeated experience, I can tell you if you blow your nose, you’ll immediately go deaf in one or both ears, which is either a plus or a minus depending on who else is in the room.

Human physiology is not my strong suit, but I believe the human head is just a bunch of interconnected tunnels, like a big wheel of Swiss cheese.

Remember that one kid in elementary school, Derek, who could squirt milk out of his eye? That’s why. And everybody thought Derek was so cool.

When I use my neti pot, I look a lot like the picture you’ll find here, except much wetter. If you don’t hold your head at precisely the correct angle, you’re basically just an elephant taking a bath in the sink.

You might want to have a towel handy. And once you’ve gotten the hang of it, maybe a carton of milk. That class reunion is right around the corner.

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