Wednesday 23 December 2009

What I am about to type will disgust you

So if you don't want to be disgusted, admire these wholesome family portraits and then flee from this site, preferably sprinkling yourself with holy water and applying one of those plague doctor masks with the giant crows' beaks as you go.

But first, pre-disgustment wholesome family portraits:

Wholesome Beatrice, getting down low with the Dustmaster 2000.


Wholesome Harriet of the unsmutched belly.

Now, vamoose, especially if you (a) work with me, (b) are likely to see me in the next week, or (c) are in the habit of excommunicating people on grounds of poor - nay, criminally negligent - hygiene. If, on the other hand, you want to wallow in fresh depths of disgustation, then huddle round and make sure you've got your bleach handy, because [da da da dum] I have worms. Thread worms. In my digestive tract. And it's a good thing, too, because if I didn't have worms - according to last night's google research - I'd have haemorrhoids, and apparently the only thing you can do for haemorrhoids is shove anaesthetic cream up your bottom, give up sitting, and betake yourself to the barber surgeon for a quick haemorrhoidectomy. All you need to dispose of worms, on the other hand, is a single dose of over-the-counter vermicide and then a brisk incineration of your house to get rid of the eggs.

I only realised that I have worms this morning, and I have since showered three times, invested in a six-pack of the aforementioned over-the-counter vermicidal tablets, a new nailbrush, and a bottle of strawberry flavoured Belgian beer (for inner cleansing, etc). I have also undergone six psychosomatic parasitosis-induced hysterical episodes, for which the beer would be useful, but I'm keen to keep my wits about me. Last night, as I lay in bed failing to get to sleep because my fundament was itching and I was pondering the fate of my benighted nethers, my mind turned - as minds do in these circumstances - to the public history of my bottom. I had a sudden terrible vision of the time my mother waited for the entire family - sisters, brother, sisters' boyfriends - to gather round before attacking the splinter that had lodged in my left buttock no-thanks-to-the-cats-tongue-wooden-floorboards-at-ballet-class. And another sudden terrible vision of the time I came home from a birthday party with a yellow paper dog mask, took off my party dress and sandals and socks and underpants, found my yellow - that is to say, horseradish, that is to say, supposedly dog-coloured - skivvy, donned it and the mask and beetled off down the street on all four feet with my naked bottom wagging. Neither of these terrible visions was as terrible as the terrible vision my mind was concocting of the gloved doctor preparing herself for my haemorrhoidectomy, and so I was glad when I woke up this morning and realised with dawning clarity that I have worms.

What troubles me, of course, besides the fact that there are small creatures roosting in my hindquarters, is that there is something seriously wrong with my hygiene routine. I mean, I wash my hands after going to the loo, with soap!, and I don't make a habit of sniffing other folks' bums or handling raw sewerage, but in the last year I've had my first wart, two cats' worth of ringworm, and now this. Noone has ever, ever, ever told me that they have worms. Ever. So I have no way of judging what a reasonable rate of infestation might be, but this - this doesn't seem reasonable.

8 comments:

Shelley said...

You have cats. What they get you get unless you keep them in a separate room and wash with disinfectant after touching them. Keep in mind that the animals that you pat and quite possibly kiss clean their arses with their tongues.
Kids are worse as the pick up every germ going and pass most of them onto you. Something to look forward to, I suppose.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Good point. I should probably stop licking the cats.

Helen said...

It's the "incineration of the house" bit that worries me - isn't that taking things a little far?

genevieve said...

aah worms will make you feel like burning something (the house is a bit excessive, but I understand.) I used to have conniptions about them when my daughter had a scratching bout in her second year of school - I don't think she ever had them, really, I think it was just school getting to her - but she took quite a bit of that Vermox before I was satisfied, and there was massive laundering happening.
Then I managed to turn my brain off it for some reason - and along came nits. Unfortunately the worms put me off getting pets for the kids (though we had a coupla bunnies) - one child in particular would have loved a dog. He should have had one. I blame worms.

M L Jassy said...

Baron, I'm inclined to marvel at the sturdiness of the human internals. So there be verminous invaders. Nothing a leaflet drop of anti-wriggling propaganda to the neighbouring red blood clusters won't fix. Lobbing vermicide grenades will demolish their encampment, and a regular flodding with strawberry beer and a fair chug of whiskey (Irish) could also ruin their morale. Fight on Baron. Just as you did whenever the fleas got you. Others may be succeptible to hangover-inducing binges and sharkbites from oversurfing the crowded waters, but you seem to attract the nibbly and the unusual. I count myself proudly among the latter!

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

H, so - a smidgen too far - but I have just pur-chased myself some contents insurance, so things are looking up on the incineration front.

G - parasitosis by proxy! That sounds as bad as the real thing.

Mitzi, that's the most rousing call to arms I've ever done heard. We will fight them on the beaches.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Luke Corbin said...

Congratulations Alexis. You now have a genuine excuse to endlessly repeat the most onomatopoeic of all words: YUK.