It's Raining Phlegm! ..or...The Downside of Mistletoe

My only real acquaintance with mistletoe is confined to the curious custom (which originated in Scandinavia) of kissing someone of the opposite gender at Christmastime under a branch of mistletoe. In my case, it was never real mistletoe. It was a petroleum based product in the shape of the real thing. It probably explains why I have never been so fortunate as to be kissed under the mistletoe. And why I don't recognize the real thing when I see it.
Mistletoe is actually a parasitic plant that feeds on trees. The trees on the boulevard to the Orff Institut are heavily infected and they have the appearance of something that you would see in a Dr. Seuss book. Big balls of evergreen foliage everywhere. I naively thought at first that these tree balls were a lovely traditional European holiday tradition. DUH!  The tree to the right only seems to have one mistletoe problem. Imagine the picture with at least ten more and you'll get the idea of how the trees on the boulevard look. SO festive!

The other day when I returned to my apartment, I was unzipping my boots when I noticed a rather large globule of what looked like...um.... well... mucus on the toe. Now being an elementary music teacher, I am quite used to the sight of drippy green candles oozing from kindergartners' noses, but I don't generally end up with them on my articles of clothing. I solemnly took a tissue and removed the offending item. 

The Austrians generally are a neat and tidy people. I say generally because smoking is popular here as it is in most of Europe and it is not unusual to find cigarette butts littering the streets. There is also a state employee whose job it is to clean up the cigarette butts. That has to be a thankless job, I'm sure. So I was rather mortified to find the sidewalk to the Institut strewn with what appeared to be vast quantities of nasal expulsions. It truly was incomprehensible to me that the native population was now carelessly spreading germs in such an unseemly fashion.

And then....... PLOP!!!! A globule fell on my coat. EWWW!!!! Then another! 

 I looked up to see that it was raining phlegm from the trees. The greenish mistletoe berries ripen and leave the mother plant. They are sticky and slimy and green. This, boys and girls, is how mistletoe spreads. So the next time a kindergartner leaves slug tracks on your sleeve, remember: 

It's not mucus, it's just reproducing mistletoe!