ENTEROBIUS VERMICULARIS (My Friends)

Okay, eventually it was going to come up that I had worms. Pinworms. If you don't know what pinworms are, then you are in for a treat.

Basically, pinworms can be transmitted by fingers contaminated by anything from bed linens to toilet seats. Microscopic eggs may get transferred to the grubby fingers of dirty little kids like me who probably did not wash their hands enough and had their fingers in their mouths more than they should.

To finalize your formal education, the eggs make their way through the intestinal track until, well, you can probably guess what happens next. After a trip to Florida, when I was about 6 or 7, I noticed something peculiar in the toilet. Basically, it looks like your stool has happy dancing threads in it. Since a pinworm is only 1/2 inch long, each event exhibits hundreds of these creatures. As you might imagine, I told my mother immediately. After a dose of medicine, this all cleared up just fine. If I remember correctly, my brother and sister had to go on the medicine, just in case. I think you just take the medicine once or twice.

But my pinworm story does not end there. When I was about 9-10 I had another bout of worms. This time, I thought I could enjoy my "friends" a little bit more. Since only one dose of medicine kills them off, I guess I didn't think it was too much of a deal. Besides, I was a little ashamed that I had degenerated in my filthy ways again. I knew that this time I would get yelled out (which was true, by both parents -- a rarely achieved feat in a broken home). So, for a few days, I actually looked forward to using the toilet and enjoyed with an almost cinematic glory the spectacle of threads be-bopping around in the toilet bowl.

Then the itching began. You see, this is how the pinworms transfer, I itch, pick up eggs, and contaminate just about anything that I touch. You can probably imagine where the itching takes place. It was unbearable, and the medicine worked as usual. I shed a tear looking over the threads that were moving no more for me.

Every now and then I reminisce, and once or twice a year I actually have to look twice. But it has been a few decades since my last contamination. The funny thing is, I almost long to revisit my friends, even just for a little while.

--gh