That which trumps all grossness

It's official. I have been grossed out beyond any measure I thought was humanly possible.

I am a self-proclaimed gross girl. Ever since my teenage years when it was cool to gross out my parents (especially my mom), I've been able to endure and/or produce grossness more than any other girl I knew of (except for maybe my girl cousin T who helped fine-tune some of my talents). Nothing was too gross for me, too disgusting, too slimy, too bloody or too real.

My younger brother was grossed out as a 3-year-old by a fishing worm and I was the one holding it, trying gently and lovingly to get him to touch it.

My parents would tell me all the time "you're going to embarrass yourself one day acting like that." I would roll my eyes and shrug it off in all of my 17-year-old know-it-all glory.

Dissecting the frog in high school biology class - piece of cake. It was neat to finally see how it all fit together in a live being. The guts dried really cool, almost like glue, on my fingers too. Med school, here I come.

Watching my dad castrate and poll cattle - it's just part of the process. Throwing the "parts" to the dog for him to eat was what I got to do.

Watching a bird's eye view of babies being born through the lens of a camera on TV - that's getting to watch God's miraculous hands at work.

Cleaning up every single bodily fluid a baby is capable of producing off of his/her body, the changing table, the floor all the way to the bathtub and some off the walls - that's just part of the job. Usually completed sans the hubby because he's gasping for fresh air.

I've even successfully grossed out my husband.

But tonight. Tonight was different. I won't go into detail, but a dear acquaintance of mine was diagnosed with Enterobius vermicularis, which is a fancy name for pinworms. I've heard of them, along with various other parasites, and I probably got to gaze at some floating around in a jar filled with dead organism liquid. I'm sure I was fascinated with their ability to adapt, complete and sustain a successful life cycle by being nourished and transported by the very organism they were slowly destroying. It was all very scientific and matter-of-fact back then.

Well, it's different now because someone I know has it. Those white, small, delicate, disgusting nematodes have invaded a body and my confidence in the natural cycle of life.

Jim and I thought it would be fun to educate ourselves, via Google, on them. But much to our dismay, about 10 minutes into our research we ran into a video.

A video of live pinworms.

This video showed them living and squirming inside some poor soul's body. And I was...








s p e e c h l e s s









My mouth fell open, I gasped in horror, my left hand slapped the side of my cheek and I literally was frozen with disgust. I could feel chills run through my body and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It was the grossest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Bar none. Hands down. It gets the 4 ft. trophy for being Grand Champion of Grossness.

So take that for what it is. Queen of I-can-handle-anything-gross was unwillingly dethroned. God help me now if there are grosser things in this universe because I might just need a barf bag.