Just an interesting story to relate here. Recently, I've been doing a passive sort of informal survey for my own curiosity. I'm attempting to find out how ubiquitous some of the elements of North American pop culture are. I do this mostly by observing, but I provide the catalyst to some of the experiments, some of the time.
Here's the situation. My friends and I are in a car on the way out. I'm in the passenger seat. We stop at a red light. Then I say "Hey, guys, I'm gonna do the pick." Naturally, I start scratching my nose on the side not exposed to a woman in her car next to us. No nostril penetration. She looks at me as though she's seen a ghost and then speeds off as soon as the light changes.
Next stop. Next to an old man. Same response.
Next stop. Next to some college-age guys. To my surprise, they not only laugh, they start picking back! So we're picking and picking, and then a third car pulls up on our left and the driver sees us and starts laughing and picking himself (much to the chagrin of his girlfriend/wife next to him, who was hiding her face, as well as our female friend in the back who thought we were being really immature). At the end, we were all picking violently "In up to our wrists," and laughing so hard there were tears coming down our eyes. One guy in the collegemobile pulls down the window and yells "No pick! There was no pick!"
On other occasions we tried it as well. About 6 out of 10 people recognize it, and about 2 out of 10 pick back!
This from a random sample of the driving population. Talk about a well-watched show!