The Tale of the Tapeworm (Miss TMI, Pt. 2)

I've been on a roll. Seemingly undaunted by my first episode of TMI, The Victim finally called. He had changed his work/school schedule and had some issues adjusting, blah, blah, blah...I was skeptical about going out with him because I still think he should've called sooner, but he's handsome and interesting, and I don't have a slew of guys just lined up to date me, so I figured what the heck.

We've hung out a few times, and I'm feeling his sense of humor, his style...and the fact that he's handsome doesn't hurt either. So on one of these occasions, I found myself apologizing for my voracious appetite, since it seemed like everytime we hung out I was hungry. He suggested that a tapeworm might be the culprit.

I told him it was highly possible...Then came The TMI. I launched into a story about when I was little girl in Jamaica. My neighbor Marlon took some worm medicine designed to kill tapeworm. It worked: one day as we were all in the yard playing dandy-shandy, Marlon left to go to the bathroom. Seconds later, he's running out of the house bawling, "Help! Help!" We look, and three feet of a tapeworm is hanging out of Marlon's ass while he's running around screaming bloody murder. Unfortunately for Marlon, no one wanted to "help"; we all ran in the opposite direction, also screaming bloody murder. He ran around until he was hoarse and spent - or the tapeworm wriggled itself to death (I forget which). All I know is that Marlon passed about 4 of those suckers that day, which left the rest of us kids in morbid fear that the same thing would happen to us. For months afterwards, every crap I took was a fearful, nightmarish one with the threat of having to pull a tapeworm out of my ass looming over my head.

Of course, the parents - buoyed by the success of the medicine on Marlon - all went out and bought the shit (no pun intended) in bulk. The minute it came to my house, I poured out the bottle and filled it with cough syrup because I did NOT want to pass worms that someone would have to pull out of my ass. So, long story short I never got rid of my tapeworms.

This long-winded explanation, my dear readers, was the one that The Victim received after making the simple observation, "Maybe you have tapeworms." Was it necessary? Probably not, but once I got started, I just couldn't stop myself. Good, kind Ness - dear soul that she is - valiantly tried to stop me. Once she heard the part where Marlon ran out with the tapeworm from his ass, she must've said "Pineapple!" a hundred times. Unfortunately, my TMI episodes are a bit like peeing; once I get started I don't stop 'til I'm done.

I've been thinking about this TMI thing quite a bit since my last post on the subject, and I've decided that it's not a bad thing. Yeah, it makes me seem like a dweeb, and it might lose me a couple dates, but it's ME. That's how I roll.

In the long run, do I really wanna date a dude who I can't be myself with?