It was 11:37 on a Friday morning in first-year James Leblooze’s Encounters section with Tom Davis when something happened that changed Leblooze’s life forever. Leblooze had been experiencing mild allergy symptoms but had taken a little Allegra and drank some tea and said later that he felt “genuinely good that morning and was definitely not expecting any sort of Vesuvius-like disaster to happen.” But, it seems, that Encounters class was much like Pompeii in 79 A.D. and would witness an eruption almost the size of Krakatoa.

In a post-incident interview, one of Leblooze’s classmates described the scene:

“We were just talking about some book that’s supposedly relevant to our education at the time. And I was half paying attention, but then I look over, and Leblooze is leaning back like he’s going to sneeze. And there are no tissues in this class dude. None.”

“I felt the sneeze coming on, and I put my hands to my face, thinking it would be dry. But it wasn’t,” noted Leblooze himself.

Indeed, Leblooze sneezed in the middle of the riveting Encounters discussion, just as one of his classmates was comparing St. Augustine to a Buzzfeed article.

“Leblooze’s sneeze mostly went on his hands. Mostly,” confessed one classmate who had not done the reading but had instead watched James Cameron’s “Aliens” the previous night.

Indeed, most of Leblooze’s sinus ooze, which was determined to be around five ounces of snot in the post-incident report filed with the school, ended up on the palms of his hands. But some landed on one of his classmates, Jan-start Lauren Harriliy. Harriliy refused to comment on the story and has taken a leave of absence from the college to cope with what her friends describe as a “soiled reputation.”

“I feel really bad some of boogers ended up on Lauren, but I was the one who truly suffered,” said Leblooze.

Post-sneeze, Leblooze noticed there were no tissues in the classroom, and his hands were completely covered with snot. Unluckily for Leblooze, he had to turn a door handle to get to the bathroom. When he lowered his hands, snot was also covering some of his face, which some of his classmates began snickering at. Leblooze managed to open the door after about 20 seconds and left some residue on the handle, which the professor later cleaned up with his tie.

Leblooze made his way down to the bathroom, but not without embarrassing himself further by walking past the girl he liked. Leblooze held his hands to his face and hoped that she wouldn’t notice that he was nervously making his way to the bathroom. She however, silently greeted him by offering him an open hand. Leblooze acted on instinct and immediately high-fived her. Another student commented on the incident: “I just her shrieking in the hallway and this girl was on the ground with snot all over her hand. I thought she had sneezed her brains out and fainted, but then I saw that creep sneaking away.”

“It was an incident I’ll never live down,” said Leblooze. “My reputation has been seriously damaged. I’m thinking about legally changing my name.”

Leblooze has since been known around campus as “Snot-boy,” and several chants have been started at fraternities of the nickname upon Leblooze’s entrance. Leblooze has yet to show to his encounters class after the incident.

“I just feel so bad about the tie,” he said. “But hopefully, I can still scrape by. If there was a moral to this story, it’s don’t have allergies! They will kill your reputation.”