August 1, 2002
Rabbit rabbit
Today is a repulsive day at Zulkey.com, and I mean that only in the most delightful way.
On Monday I described what disgusted me the most in the world, and it turned into a whole week of the repellant, the abhorrent, and the unsavory. And thanks to a lot of people with gross stories to share, now there are more for you to read. So enjoy! Tomorrow, I will feature a fun interview as well, which in and of itself will not be disgusting, but it will still, be in the spirit of Disgusting Week at Zulkey.com. Note: I meant to link authors with their sites or sites that mention them but silly me, I have no real good excuse. Oh well. If you want to know more about a particular author please feel free to contact me and I'll tell you everything you want to know. And more. Heh heh.
And now, on with the show! Ick!
From Chad
Stevens:
The grossest story I've heard in quite a while: A friend was taking his two
kids to day care. The two boys are 4 and 6 respectively. The beginning was
simple enough. The 4-year-old, to put it delicately, crapped his pants. He
wasn't unduly upset by this because sometimes, he just forgets his sphincter
control skills and lets loose an excremental volley. Not a good thing, uncomfortable
really, but nothing that remarkable. But then, the 6-year-old, tummy full
of blueberry waffles and nervous about some schoolyard drama set to play out
that day, smells the unmistakable and noxious odor of his brother's recent
misfortune. Thus begins the vomiting. The younger one, previously unfazed
by his own bowel function, is not so sanguine about chunks flying out of the
opposite end of his beloved sibling. Thus continues the vomiting. And they
both begin to cry. Loudly. Now, my friend has the following situation. Two
small boys, crying at the top of their lungs, play clothes inundated with
vomit (or crap, as the case may be) and wallowing spastically about the back
seat of his car. Never mind that the seats had not yet been scotchguarded
as he had planned, or that he was wearing a new tie. All this story needed
was a rotting fish.
Epilogue: He calmed them down, took them home, cleaned them up, took a shower and was 2 hours late for work. The tie was saved. The car continued to smell a little funny. Ah, the joys of fatherhood.
From Mike Janson, Who Was Reading Chad's Mind
:I get to the beach pretty often nowadays, and while I was out in the water,
floundering around, trying to remember all the different swimming strokes
I learned at the YMCA when I was eight, I nearly ran into a fish. My immediate
(and intelligent) response was to say, to no one in particular - except maybe
the fish itself - "Hey, there's a fish." Oh, what irrepressible
wit I have.
Anyway, the encounter was a little more startling than one might think. First of all, you don't just nearly run into fish. Fish like to swim around below the surface of the water for the most part, and this one was clearly flopping around above the water. Since fish don't usually flop around above water, this fish wasn't exactly getting anywhere fast, and I was afforded a much clearer view of fish than I normally get. Needless to say, I was fairly disgusted. In a flash of clarity, I empathized with my younger brother Dan, who at age four mercilessly beat a dead fish we found on a beach with a stick. I also felt a connection with my older sister Krista, who took up vegetarianism for several months in high school only to avoid eating fish. Only now did I see the underlying, two-fold truth that my siblings have long been aware of: 1) fish are pretty fucking disgusting, and 2) if you get a chance, whack 'em with a stick.
After realizing all of this and compressing it into four syllables of pure
genius (see above), I did what anyone else would have done in my position-
I waded back to shore, dried off, and waited for other people to run into
the fish. In hindsight, I probably should have ran to find a stick, but with
no branches in sight, the only reasonable substitute at the time was soaking
a towel and then whipping the fish from afar. I'll have to consult with my
brother, but I bet that's not nearly as gratifying.
Disgusting Fiction from David
Mogolov:
"Snot!" Johnny yelled. His parrot's gizzard was blocked, and he
was afraid that it might stop breathing.
The two of them had been up all night watching a movie about crop circles.
The movie centered around one in Alabama that was said to be fetus/foetus
shaped. Benny, the parrot, had one puce wing and began to murmur about the
crop circles on his sac.
Johnny told him to shut his filthy parrot mouth, which then began to fill,
thickly, with the aforementioned snot. During a lingerie ad that followed
the crop circle movie, Johnny grabbed the stub of a nearly-spent candle, cut
a slit in it to allow for airflow, and attempted to use it to dislodge the
blockage in Benny's throat. Benny, angry, bit him on the toe. Much like a
lamprey would, if it had a jaw.
The membrane around the inside of Benny's beak was a little crusty, reminiscent
of the time he caught the bubonic plague. That had been easy enough to cure,
since Johnny had a coupon for a local veterinarian service. Benny declared
the vet "Stinky, and friggin' boring, frickin' filthy." To prove
his point he gestured with one wing at a mess in the corner, which included,
among other things, a chunk of moist discarded pantyhose. "They might
as well just post a photo of my anus!" Benny had squawked.
I once had a writing teacher, and he told us on our first day in
his class that he hated. Hated the word OINTMENT. If he ever found that word in a paper submitted to him, that paper would be marked down a full grade. So if it was otherwise an A paper, it would get a B. He said that seeing the word OINTMENT actually made him want to give an F, but because he was a nice person he would not. He felt
almost the same way about SALVE.
Anyway, I once brought it up in conversation (during office hours), which meant that I said the words to him. He said, in all seriousness, "Please. Don't ever use those words around me. It's painful."
A Disgusting Recipe from Allen
Verbrugge:
Cousin Scott's Barbecue Chicken Daiquiris
1 c. vodka
1 c. spiced rum
2 chicken bouillon cubes dissolved in 2 cups water
2 T. liquid smoke
1 tsp. Tabasco
48 oz. crushed ice
salt and pepper, to taste
Tung
Le on Debbie's Turn-Offs:
This is not what I find disgusting, but what my wife finds disgusting.
Ever had flan? It's a French custard desert with a smooth, rich texture, oft
covered with a burnt sugar sauce. My mom makes some mean flan. My wife considers
eating flan the culinary equivalent of ingesting mucus
From Jim
Ruland:
Things My Brother, Emmett, Said to Our Friend, Sharod, to Win a Bet
that He Could Make Sharod Puke While He Was Frying on Acid
Menstrual blood.
Jim's girlfriend (Early evidence of my brother's abundant wit.)
Doug's ass (Doug was our roommate. When lightbulbs burned out he set things
on fire and carried them around the apartment until he found what he was looking
for. Doug's ass was not particularly revolting, but Sharod was the type of
discrete homophobe who could be grossed out by a mental image of a man's ass.
He definitely cringed.)
Fish guts (I went fishing with Sharod once and my other roommate Dave hooked Sharod's eyebrow during a cast. Sharod took it well, didn't get mad, and calmly removed the hook. Dave, on the other hand, thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.)
A tablespoon of rancid mayonnaise.
Hot, greasy pork sandwich dipped in an ashtray (The clincher. Sharod went
out on the porch and blew chunks.)
From Anonymous:
I was hanging out at my apartment a couple years ago, drinking a bunch of
really thick, sweet and tasty grape juice. I set my glass down on the ground
for some stupid reason, with a little bit of juice and foam sitting in the
bottom. As I was getting ready to leave my apartment a little later, I did
one last refill in that juice glass and proceeded to chug it all down. When
I got to the bottom of the glass, I noticed that the juice was a little thicker
even than I'd thought... I had something in my mouth that I thought for a
second was somehow grape skin. Then I felt it start to stir. I spat it out,
and saw a roach squirming on the carpet.
I had had a roach in my mouth. I didn't let it freak me out as much as I normally would, just so I could get on with my day. But I did gargle with Listerine for a long time.
A Horrifying Childhood Tale from Matt
Wilson:
You know the story about the dog with the pork chop in his mouth? Well, while
the pooch protagonist was crossing a small footbridge over a stream, he glanced
down to see his reflection and saw another dog with a seemingly bigger pork
chop in his maw.
That was basically me. Except the pork chop was a stick. The stick was in my hand, instead of my mouth. But it found it's way to my mouth. And the fable ended with lots of blood and viscera.
Pops was pulling me in my little red wagon through IBM Park in Rochester,
MN. It was 1978 and Bert Blyleven still had a curve ball that looked like
it fell off a table, giving Minnesotans hope for a prosperous future of professional
baseball longevity and proud state politics.
I was seated in the wagon with stick in my right paw, as all three year old
boys do, and I saw a larger, cooler stick coming upon us. Cool sticks back
then were assessed on the number and quality of crooks in the stick: a good
solid extension on the end made it look like the handle of a gun. And at that
time, that was a very necessary requirement. The stick I saw on the ground
had such a handle.
Existing stick still in my right hand, I leaned over the side of
the wagon and reached down to get the cooler stick - right as our wagon hit
a small rock in our path, jarring the wagon and sending my right hand toward
my face; the stick finding its way into my mouth, past my uvula, and down
my throat - it's jagged, barky end tearing my esophagus until it stopped...
lodged in my throat.
And Finally, Some Short and Sweet Ones from Mary
Richardson Graham
Childbirth
After I had labored and pushed a good long while, my midwife decided that
things weren't going too well and it would be best to cut the child out. I
heartily agreed. The cutting out went well, as did the extraction of a healthly
child. Now comes the gross part. After the child is removed, the placenta
comes next. Normally the doctor gives a good yank on the placenta and it comes
right out, like velcro, supposedly. So the doctor yanked my placenta and out
came my uterus! It was still attached to the placenta and now it was inside
out and bleeding all over the place. I passed out, but that lucky witness,
my husband, says there were huge clots of blood all over the floor. Luckily,
the doctor was able to get the placenta detached and shove the uterus back
in where it belonged. I was fine, just short a few pints of blood.
Roaches
We live in the city therefore we have roaches. Large roaches. Great big date-sized
roaches. Normally they stay in our backyard with the occasional and usually
fatal excursion to our kitchen or bathroom. Last summer they were expecially
prolific thanks to our neighbors' poor sanitary habits. One night my husband
and I woke up because something had been tickling our faces. Yes, it was one
of our little pals, it had run across both of us and now was lounging in our
bed, but not for long. Sleeping was difficult after that.
Kid
Our kid has sensitive skin and sometimes gets what we refer to as diaper rash
even though she hasn't used diapers for years. Usually a long soak in the
tub clears it right up. This past spring she had an especially persistant
rash. We finally took her to the doctor who cultured her back-end. She had
strep butt. We had never heard of it either. The disgusting part is that a
few days later I came down with strep throat.
Dog
I have an old dog. Murphy is a retreiver mix. Retrievers suffer from chronic
ear infections that never really go away no matter how diligently they are
attended to. Murphy's ears are red, swollen and pussy. He likes to rub his
ears with his paws and then lick his paws. Sometimes he shakes his head and
brown pus comes flying out.
[Editor's note: I am so happy that that is the last sentence today. It just wraps everything up so nicely, don't you think?]