u/nomad-factory

TLDR: If you feel a sneeze coming, press your tongue firmly against the roof of your mouth, right behind/above your front teeth. For me it stops the sneeze about 95% of the time.

I’m exactly 1 month post-op today and I still wake up multiple times a night with a sore lower back and super tight muscles. I thought about making this post at 2am last night lol

Anyways, I wanted to share a weird little trick that’s saved me countless times over the past couple of years.

I honestly don’t remember where I learned this prop Reddit tbh, but I’ve been doing it ever since my sciatica started 2 years ago. Still now actually, every sneeze feels like getting stabbed in the lower back, so being able to stop em has been pretty nice.

I’m also curious:
Does this actually work for anyone else?

How many of you already knew this trick?

Also… I feel like this is probably the only subreddit where people willingly try to stop a perfectly satisfying sneeze 😂

So I’m masc-presenting, tall, short hair, covered in tattoos, basically a walking gay flag. My gf is more fem but still very obviously gay imo. We’re both in our early 30s.

Anyway we usually do groceries together but today I went alone. There’s this cashier, early 20s, handsome, always super kind and polite.

He starts scanning my stuff and goes:
“Hey, can I tell you something?”

Me: Sure.

Him: Your "girl friend"… the blonde girl…

Me: Yeah?

Him: She’s really cute.

Me: Haha, she is. I’ll tell her you said that, she’ll appreciate it.

He scans a few more items in complete silence.
Then he leans in and whispers:

“Do you know if she’s already dating someone?”

And this is where my brain finally catches up.
(We speak French so girlfriend and "female friend" is the same word)

Me: “Ohhhh. Uh… yeah. She is actually. It’s Me 😅”

He went blank for a solid 5s while the Windows error sound played behind his eyes lol

Him: “Oh.”

Me: “…yup.”

Then we stood there in the most painful silence imaginable for the next two minutes while he slowly scanned the remaining stuff like his soul had left his body.

The funniest part is that this guy sees us shopping together almost every week. Meanwhile I’m standing there looking like I own a mechanic shop and drive a semi truck and somehow little bro still thought, they’re probably roommates.

Poor guy though probably spent weeks hyping himself up to make a move and will feel ashamed every time he’ll see us again.