Bugs On Board

Bugs On Board


I'd never totally believed my mom, really.  All those silly stories she'd tell us kids, just to spoil whatever little bit of fun we were having at the time.  Whenever we crossed our eyes, she'd tell us they'd get stuck like that, if something went past them real fast.  When we'd spit watermelon seeds at one another, she would tell us we'd have watermelons growing in our stomach, if we swallowed the seeds.  She'd tell us that bugs will grow in our stomach, if we swallowed one while sticking our head out the window of a moving car.  Things like that.

I think I quit worrying about it, though, when I learned in school that your stomach had hydrochloric acid in it.  Acid!  Now, how could a seed or a bug live through an acid bath?  It didn't make any logical or scientific sense, it just wasn't possible.

Yep - that's what I'd thought.  Right up until last Sunday.

I woke up that afternoon after Day Three of another dorm-sponsored pizza and beer bash.  I was seriously hungover and my mouth felt like... like... like it had never felt before.  I was used to waking up to the foul taste of stale beer and old pizza brought on by both the initial chugging and scarfing, and the occasional return trip, but this was really different.  Weird different.  The inside of my mouth felt like it was moving.

I went into the bathroom, opened my mouth and looked in the mirror.  I think I whacked my head on the wash basin and the toilet when I fainted, 'cuz when I came to, I had a couple of nasty bumps that I didn't remember having before.  I slowly pulled myself up to the mirror.  I still had that weird feeling in my mouth, so I opened it again.

Bugs!  What looked to be a couple dozen of 'em.  They were scurrying around doing whatever bugs in your mouth do.  I thought about chewing, but that would probably involve swallowing and I wasn't up to that just then, so I just watched.  Eventually, I figured out that they were eating the bits of pizza stuck to and between my teeth.  Well, wasn't that something?

All at once, they kinda gathered themselves and headed, I kid you not, down my throat.  I could feel them make their way through my innards--back to my stomach, I guess.  I remembered a scene from a movie about women trying to join the FBI.  One of the guys challenged one of the women to a pizza eating contest, and the women won it by telling the guy that poorly cooked pepperoni could contain bug larvae that would hatch in your stomach and then wiggle around.  He'd lost his lunch and the bet.  I'd always thought it was a neat trick, except that the whole stomach acid thing meant it was just part of a movie.  That was then.

I didn't know what to do, so I didn't do anything.  I didn't tell anyone, either.  Who'd believe me?  I sure didn't feel like showing 'em off.

* * *

Well, it's Thursday now, and I've achieved a sort of peace slash resignation about the whole deal.  One thing's not too, bad, though.  I don't get as hungry as I used to.  I think that, somehow, they're sharing the nutrients with me.  Kinda cool, actually.

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