Category — gross stuff

Which is exactly what would happen if I were to make and consume this.

The alternate title for this post was:

“…And Ramble was nestled
all snug in her bed,
While visions of bacon rolls
danced in her head.”

But it was too long.

This is not a post for the weak of heart – or stomach! – I am going to say terrible and disgusting things!

You have been warned.

I like to eat. I’m not overweight, or a food snob, nor do I have a particular palate, but I do like food. That being said, I very nearly became a vegetarian today.

I was rooting through the cupboards looking for something more healthy than microwave popcorn for lunch when I decided on salmon. I’m a cretin, I used the tinned stuff in sandwiches because in addition to being a cretin, I am also lazy. Joe has taught me to leave in the little bit of skin and the bones that come in it as they are, respectively, a valuable source of grossness and calcium.

So there I am, mashing up salmon and skin and bone and glopping on the mayo when it hits me: I am mixing up a bowl of flesh and bone with mayo. Actual FLESH! and BONE!! with MAYO!!! I cannot find words for how disgusting this mix became to me. I looked at it, I wrinkled my nose at it and thought “What kind of barbarian eats mashed up fish flesh and bone? What sort of Neanderthal puts mayonnaise in that mix and calls it edible? What in the name of all that is good and delicious am I doing?”

Keep in mind that I have routinely disgusted roommates and boyfriends alike with my propensity for eating food while watching surgeries on TV: open heart surgeries, bowel resections, people having yard waste removed from their perforated intestines, live births (both caesarian and natural), liposuction, reconstructive plastic surgeries, autopsies etc.

I have also volunteered in the emergency room of a fairly large hospital where I saw actual things that would make other people throw up (and I saw a fair bit of throwing up too!) and I have a paramedic for a father.

I am no stranger to gross things.

Yet – today the thought of eating that salmon made me queasy. Me – of all people!

Of course, I am a practical person in many ways – I ate the sandwich anyway. No point in being wasteful after all, but I still feel a little sick. There is whole wheat bread and squashed up fish and mayo sliding around my insides.

It’s days like this where I’m glad I know how to make home-made ipecac.

I don’t like bugs.

I know that I am 50 million times bigger than the bugs I’m likely to encounter in my home, and that I could squish them, or catch and release them and that, for the most part, they can’t do much damage to me.

Despite that very logical reasoning, I am still afraid of bugs. Well, specific bugs. I don’t like pill bugs, earwigs, most spiders and millipedes or centipedes. The last two really freak me out. What do they need all those legs for? I’ve never seen an alien life form, but I’m pretty sure those things come close.

So last night, I’m reading quietly in bed, unwinding after cleaning up from a huge turkey dinner and I am just thinking of turning out the light when, from the corner of my eye, I see a huge spider sprinting across the pillow towards my face.

I shoot up, throw the covers back, scramble away from the spider and, shamefully, shriek. A quiet, rather strangled shriek, but a shriek nonetheless. This of course wakes Joe up and he says “Wha??!!” and I point, wiggling my finger madly in the direction I think the spider has gone.

“Spider! I think it went over the side of the bed!”

Joe dutifully looks as I get off the bed and stand in the doorway pointing. He finally locates the spider on the floor – probably terrified out of its tiny little mind at being pursued by people 50 million times bigger than it – and scoops it up in his hand.

I open the window as asked and Joe releases the poor thing outside. We get back into bed. Joe gets back in quickly and gratefully and I perch hesitantly on the top of the covers for a moment, imagining hordes of killer spiders waiting to feast on my feet.  I look at Joe, who is smirking. 

“It was a big spider!” I say.

He looks at me as if to say “You’re such a girl!” I laugh, because when it comes to bugs, I am. I have no problem with blood, guts, vomit, getting filthy or any of that stuff. However, most bugs freak me out.

I’m not sure what it is about bugs that makes me lose my mind. I won’t go out of my way to kill bugs just going about their business, but when they are in my bed – and the same colour as my sheets! – I get squirrelly.

I’d be the first one voted off the island if my life were a reality TV show.