But you’d be wrong. I made myself a note yesterday! Let’s see now, what did I say I’d talk about? Oh yeah, they are (in no particular order):
- Brain-eating amoebas
- The Plague
- Bot flies
There is a common thread to all of these disgusting things, but you’ll have to read this whole post to figure out what it is. First, let me tell you why they’re on the list. As you may know, I write a blog for work, all about health. It’s called Health-bent (how I got away with that name, I’ll never know) and it’s pretty much the best part of my job. Last week’s post was all about allergies, which must’ve resonated with a lot of people, because many people commented in response to my quest to find a magical cure. It was all going well, and then came the brain-eating amoebas.
Well, actually, first came my comment about neti pots and distrust of this image, which I cannot stop posting. There’s something mesmerizing about just how much this guy is enjoying his ridiculous predicament. One of my readers posted a comment (with a link to a news story, no less) about how people using tap water in their neti pots somewhere in the southern US contracted a brain-eating amoeba. Seriously, you guys; this is for real. It was in the news in December. <<barfs>>
So, that’d be a bad day. Imagine: There you are, rinsing your sinuses, and suddenly your BRAIN is being eaten. By a zombie-like, brain-eating amoeba. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, THIS IS TERRIFYING STUFF. And to think I was contemplating trying a neti pot. NOT ANYMORE.
Okay, next point. Right. Moving on. To the Plague. Mmm hmm. A nice light topic. Last time Adam was in Seattle for coaching training, I was watching movies on Netflix and saw one with Sean Bean. I figured it must be good. Except for how it was all about bubonic plague (not sure what I thought it would be about, given that it was called Black Death). Suffice it to say, this movie was Pretty. Darn. Gross. Seriously. It was gory (people die in horrifically medieval, by which I mean not generally humane, methods). The next day, I was at work, and began to wonder if the way they portrayed the plague was, in fact, based on fact. So, I looked it up. Do NOT do this. I urge you to heed my advice. But, I can assure you that the way they depicted black death in the movie (which you probably shouldn’t watch) was very true to reality (which you probably don’t want to know).
Clearly, I cannot be trusted to take care of myself whilst on my own. I watch horrible movies and stay up too late. I need a grown up.
Okay, so last one. Bot flies. Last week on my monthly Friday-night craftiness party (in which my friends and I make crafts involving rubber stamps, double-sided tape and oh-so-much glitter), we somehow ended up listening to Ashley describe bot flies.
By “somehow”, I mean that we were talking about bugs and Annie mentioned that her crazy roommate on the MBA trip to Brazil (oh right, that was me…), felt compelled to look up and learn about the types of insects they might encounter while pottering about in the Amazonian rainforest. I admit that, in hindsight, this was a mistake. As was, apparently, the sharing of my new and unwelcome knowledge with Annie, who has evidently not yet forgiven me.
All this talk of looking up disgusting bugs that want to kill you made us discuss the spiny fish that swims up your you-know-what, if you pee in the water (I don’t know if it’s true, but our guide said not to pee in the water, so I took his word for it). After agreeing that this would definitely be an unpleasant experience, Ashley shared with us a story about bot flies and how she learned what they do by Googling them. I would strongly suggest you do not do this. For real. Trust me. I haven’t, because I have the benefit of Ashley’s verbal description and I’m not quite done twitching when I think about it.
What’s the moral of this long, seemingly disjointed and rambling account? Don’t look things up. Do not Google them. And heaven help you if you do, but do NOT click on the images tab. Just leave it alone. Look at pictures of cute kittens to distract your mind. Trust me. There are some things you don’t need to know, especially graphically.
I remember the day I looked up the plague at work. I ran over to my coworker’s desk and told her how horrific it was. To which she replied, “Well, yeah. It’s The Plague. What did you expect?”
How very reasonable of her. I didn’t really have an answer. But I wish I didn’t know what it looked like.