The Benjamins. Not just for snorting Cocaine.

A study on the thingies what are found on your moneys.

"In a 2002 study published in the Southern Medical Journal, researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio found that 94 percent of the 68 bills tested were contaminated with bacteria ...  7 percent harbored dangerous pathogens, including Klebsiella pneumoniae, which can cause infections such as pneumonia, and Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause skin and other infections. Other experiments have found the fecal bacteria E. Coli."

Are you willing to take the risk, ARE YOU??

" 'Paper money is a good conduit of germs,' said Tierno, author of The Secret Life of Germs, "--the older ones more so."

Don't care about E.Coli? How about snow, blow, crack, weasel dust, and paradise white?

"Paper currency certainly is a good conduit of cocaine. A 2009 University of Massachusetts study that tested 234 bank notes from 18 U.S. cities found 90 percent of the bills tested positive for cocaine."

Also, "A 2001 study of 10 one-dollar bills, published in Forensic Science International, also found 70 percent contaminated with heroin, 30 percent with methamphetamine and 20 percent with PCP."

Don't be licking your dollar bills, son. Lest you go on a bad, bad trip.

Squimming Pools.

When I was young, I used to go swimming in our little alligator swimming pool in the back yard. Do you remember those alligator swimming pools? They were green hard plastic and had a super tiny like two-foot slide into the water. I was a child of the 1980s (Generra Hypercolor, what what), so maybe you young whippersnappers don't remember alligator swimming pools, but trust me, they were kickass.

Well. During those hot summers, I'd play in our alligator pool, but then, we'd let the water sit and stagnate. It would sit for the entire summer. But I'd still put on my Strawberry Shortcake swimsuit or my fantastic neon suit with the squiggles all over it, and I'd go outside during the dog days and bob about in it.

Most of the time there were mosquito larvae squimming in the water.

I'd still play in it.

I'd swim, me and those larvae. I'd swim.

Which might be the reason today that I nuke our hot tub with fire and put 18 cups of chlorine in our kiddie pool, burning the eyes and flesh of my children.

School 'n Jell-O 'n Aliens. Schelloliens.

So back when my older chitlin was 4ish years old, and we put her in preschool, she was getting sick every 2 to 3 hours. Like, we'd send her to class and she catch her 17th concurrent illness. Measles, mumps, AND Rubella. Shigella. Diphtheria. Tetanus. SARS. Hep A B C D and E. North Korean Kangaroo Flu. Pancreatic cancer. She caught everything. In other words, SICK ALL THE TIME.

After maybe four or five U.S. American months, we withdrew her from class, because (A) as heretofore mentioned, she was sick all of the time with all of the things; (2) it was expensive as hell; and (3) she fucking hated school. So why pay for it?

A year later, we put her back in school. This time she loved it. Loved class, loved her teachers. So we were hell-bent on making this work.

Lo and behold, she got sick every 3.275 hours. Such is the life of a Pre-K child I suppose. Such is the life of any school-age kid. Because parents can't seem to make sure they keep their violently ill child home in order to avoid the spread of the sick. Sniffle? Send 'em to school. Vomiting? Send 'em to school. Bloody diarrhea? Send 'em to school. Mouth sores and peeling skin? Send 'em to school. Black hairy tongue? Send 'em to school.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

But. It got better. Maya went at least three months between colds. I was shocked and amazed. This is the kid who got four colds on top of each other and was sick non-stop, non-to-the-stizzop. But now she was going entire flu seasons without getting ill. Fuck yeah! Thank you, obsessive handwashing and flu vaccines. Thank you Heavenly Father and thank you Lady Luck. Thank you unicorns and thank you fairy dust. Thank you Purell Advanced. Thank you dear 8 pounds 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus, don't even know a word yet, lying there in your ghost manger, just looking at your Baby Einstein developmental videos, learnin' about shapes and colors. Thank you.

Wherein John Christopher Reilly barely stifles a laugh at W. Ferrell's ad-libbed shenanigans.

Where am I going with all this information? I have no idea. Noooooooo idea. No i-deer.

Other than to say, it gets better. I guess. With the exception of a rough start to the school year, we've been really, really lucky not to get fatally sick this season.*** Of course, there's always next. There's always room for E-C-O-L-I.

I'll have you know that the aforementioned jpeg won out over all other fantastic search results, including the following: 

Classic Jell-O

Zombie Jell-O

Ugly Jell-O

Jell-O Invasion

And Cosby Jell-O.

Because, Georgio Tsoukalos . And Jell-O. Just, Jell-O.

How have you and YOURS been this cold & flu season? Well, I hope.

*** And now cue rampant norovirus, now that I've made all these claims straight in the face of superstitions.

It Never Fails.

So I finally crawled out of my hermit shell and invited friends over for a playdate. My friend has two daughters like I do, the same age as Maya and Naomi. We had a fun time, gossiping about the neighbors and talking Reality TV and just enjoying ourselves. It was nice to have adult company for once.

But.

Wouldn't you know it.

I received an email later saying that my friend's daughter had the barfing flu. Only hours after she left our house. After playing within mere centimeters of each other and chewing on toys and sharing a bowl of Goldfish and accidentally using the same sippy and such.

It never fails.

In the same vein, I haven't seen my Acid Test friends in like five months, but let me tell you this: let me tell you that if I bit the bullet and called them up and went out for dinner or drinks or played at home with the kids, let me tell you that I would receive news mere hours after the get-together that my friend's daughter had a severe strep infection or pinkeye or a raging case of the trots or airborne diabetes. We're talking Captain Trips all up in here.

Hear me now, believe me later. It would happen.

So I can't seem to win. Sure, my daughter had a nice time playing with a buddy. And I loved hanging with my friend too. But seriously, the stomach flu? I can't win.

Dark Water.

I'm just gonna leave this here.

It can never be good when the URL includes the words Hotel + Water + Corpse. I'm just saying.

"Tourists staying at a Los Angeles hotel bathed, brushed teeth and drank water from a tank in which a young woman's body was likely decomposing for more than two weeks, police said." ...

"The water did have a funny taste," Sabrina Baugh told CNN on Wednesday. She and her husband used the water for eight days.

A funny taste. A funny taste. EIGHT DAYS. OF CORPSE. EIGHT DAYS OF CORPSE WATER. Could the funny taste be maggots and flesh rot? Funny. A funny taste. Hilarious.

"The shower was awful," she said. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."

Black. Black corpse water. Corpse water. Showering in a dead body.

The end.

Fun Phobic Fact Friday!

MEGA EDITION.


1. Ever have a craving for a peanut butter sandwich? That thick, yummy, and creamy goodness. In one pound of peanut butter, it typically can contain up to 150 bug fragments and 5 rodent hairs. [Ed. Note: Who's making these sandwiches, Remy??]

2. House flies go to the bathroom roughly every 4.5 minutes. Think about that next time you see one fly on your delicious dinner. [Ed. Note: "House flies go to the bathroom" strikes me as a ridiculous way to phrase it. I think "House flies visit the lavat'ry" would be much better.]

3. Step outside and smell the roses. On a daily average you will inhale 1 liter of others anal gasses.

4. In the mood for fast food? An average person will consume 12 pubic hairs in their fast food annually. Gross! [Ed. Note: Are the fast food workers folding your quesadilla betwixt their legs? Seriously guys, you had one job.]

5. It's summer time, and that means the pools are open! If you swim one hour in a public pool you will intake 1/12 liters of urine. [Ed. Note: "But urine is sterile!!" all you filth monsters insist. (1) It's not sterile when it exits through a person's junk; and (2) even if that were true, who wants to ingest sterile urine anyway?]

6. Creepy crawling cockroaches. As if they aren't disgusting looking enough. These insects carry over 40 different pathogens which risk being transferred to humans. Included is pneumonia, plague, hepatitis, and typhoid fever just to name a few.

7. Need to use the bathroom? When a person pees, a small deposit of urine enters the mouth through the saliva glands. [Ed. Note: I didn't realize that one's ureters were directly connected to their mouth. lol.]

8. Need that morning jump? Next time you go out to the coffee shop think about this, diarrhea induced E.Coli was found on 10% of coffee mugs in the U.S. [Ed. Note: I'll have a grande nonfat vanilla soy bum-bum germs latte, please. Hold the whip.]

9. Enjoy a nice cup of yogurt? You might want to double check the ingredients again. Some yogurts and jelly sweets contain beef or pork gelatin. [Ed. Note: That's what gelatin is. Horse hoofs and such as. Ever eat Jell-O? Same thing.]

10. Think you've got it bad when you vomit? The longest recorded projectile vomiting is 27 feet. I wonder what he ate. [Ed. Note: Yeah? You think that's impressive? Well the longest cat projectile vomit was eight feet.]

11. We all like a man who gives a nice firm hand shake. However, you might want to think twice before returning the firm grip. Annually you will shake hands with 6 men who have recently masturbated and did not wash their hands.

12. Through contact with door knobs, counter tops, and other daily objects your hand will come in contact with 15 penises a day. [Ed. Note: At least it's not 9,000 penises.]

13. When we sleep we are the most relaxed and at peace. Who would've thought that while you are snoozing you were inhaling bugs! In a years time, most humans will consume 14 insects while in their sleep. [Ed. Note: Someone should tell the author that inhaling is different from consuming. Lung spiders are bad mmkay?]

14. Having work done to your house? Research has shown that in a lifetime you will have had 22 workmen examine the dirty contents of your linen basket. [Ed. Note: Who is leaving the Fios guy alone long enough for him to sneak into your laundry room??]

15. Here comes the bride. Next time you're planning to attend a wedding reception you might want to bring a hanker chief. You have a 1/100 chance of taking home a cold sore from one of the guests. Cold sores are a form of oral herpes! [Ed. Note: Why weddings? And how? Are you going around taking sips out of everyone's champagne?]

Phifteen phun phobic phacts for you to enjoy.

Love,
Jo

Sick like the Dog.

So over here we've all been sick. First I puked (ALL OVER THE CARPET).

Then Maya had a bought of about 7 pukes overnight in her bed, and during the next day, and then Naomi threw up once. Needless to say, this house smells like ralph, no matter how much carpet cleaner I use and no matter how many baths we give the kids and no matter how many holiday-scented candles I burn.

And there is no end to the laundry I've been doing. We have a LOT of blankets in this house, and we are totally out. They're all in the wash.

I'm not sure if it's norovirus or what. ( I hear 'tis the season for it.) But we've been very unhappy. For the last two days Maya has eaten two Saltines and three spoonfuls of chicken & stars. Can't even keep water down. Luckily today she bounding around like nothing happened, although her appetite isn't quite back. Me, I'll still feel really nauseated. Want to barf ALL the time.

Let's the hub doesn't catch this things, because it's been miserable.

But for once, I have been able to comfort my babies with hugs and kisses, instead of feeling like they are poison.. I am able to love them, and kiss them, and hug them, and snuggle them, and hole their hair back, and wash out barf buckets. You know, like normal moms. I think my new anti-anxiety med, Vistaril, continues to work, even though it makes me sore sleepy.

Who among here prays?

Bathing With Your Beloved. Usually Disgusting, but Consider This.

Speaking of communal bathing......

S

"I love you, baby." - "I love you right back." "And your toe won't even accidentally enter my bits."

Sexy, segregated, sanitary. No soaking in each other's bumbum germs. Perfection. Will be installing one of these the moment we win the lottery.

The Dirt on Clean.

For Christmas, my cousin got me a book. It's called The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History, by Katherine Ashenburg.

It could not be more perfect for me. It is at once horrifying, fascinating, vomit-inducing, engrossing, and fucking pure awesome.

There are quotes spattered throughout the book. For example, Marcus Aurelius said at one point during his life from 121 to 180 AD, "What is bathing when you think of it? Oil, sweat, filth, greasy water, everything revolting."

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY. Baths are the grossest thing ever, unless you shower thoroughly first and wash all your naughty bits. And bathing with someone else? Unacceptable.

Also, when delving into the medieval period, the book states, "We don't know how and how often people washed, ... but plausible estimates are 'not thoroughly' and 'seldom.' "

Imagine your whole body looking like this.

Another revolting quote, this time from Ulrich, a monk of Cluny circa 1075, states "As to our baths, there is not much we can say, for  we only bathe twice a year before Christmas and before Easter."

So glad you at least get clean for Jesus.

The book also talks about how, for most of our recordable history, when people "bathed" at all, it involved rubbing oil on your body and scraping it off with something called a strigil.

When "soap" was invented, it was made from animal fat and ashes. Mmm. Bath & Body Works should come up with a new foaming hand wash called "Antibacterial Donkey Lard."

I am still in the process of reading this gem of a book, and I shall promptly report back with further horrifying details. There is an entire chapter entitled, "But Didn't They Smell?"

That they did, Sonny Jim. That they did.

Also, here's a baby lamb.

T&A Time.

Sorry, I meant Q&A Time.

I'm so out of ideas for this blog that it's not even funny. And then it's funny and then not funny again.

So let's do a little question-and-answer session.

Is there anything I haven't covered that you want to ask me? Or something you want more dirty deets about?

ASK ME ANYTHING!!

Help me find something to write about, my beloveds. Or even if you are a perfect stranger. Just ask!

PLEEEEEEEEEASE.

This Post Is Entirely Unrelated to OCD.*

Just cute pictures of my kids.

We did Santa pictures twice. The first time the kids were all decked out, but Naomi was a whiny little cuss and her dress was all a mess and such. So the second time, we took them in matching jammies (since Santa always wears jammies) and the picture turned out much better. So here they are!

* I lied, this is OCD-related. I always break into a cold sweat when I see Santa's hands touch my kids (or worse yet, as in that first picture, where my kids actually touch Santa's hands).** Also I worry about them catching lice or bedbugs or the flu from all the other kids Santa has held. But you can't skip Santa pictures. You just can't. I just had to double my anti-anxiety medication, is all.

** And don't even get me started on the time I took my one-and-a-half month old baby to see Santa. Her face actually touched his beard. His BEARD. But I can't complain because it is the most precious picture ever to exist in this world. Ever. Like, I could win a Major Award with this shit.

Merry Christmas, beloved friends. I hope you have a wonderful holiday and that the New Year treats you well. And I hope that none of you catches Salmonella from the homemade eggnog.

Fun Phobic Fact...Furday?

Catuum

please dear god why did i watch the health inspectors on the food network why

chicken

raw chicken contaminating everything

why

Fun Friendly Phobic Fact Friday.

So I was watching Dr. Oz on TV (MEHMET!!) and he was talking about all the hidden dangers of dining out, and the "secrets servers don't want you to know."

I am all incognito-like

Of course I felt it was my duty to share these findings with you, my friends and lovers.

• One Helpful Hint was to never, ever order fish on Sunday or Monday. It's usually old and groce.

• Also, if you order your steak well-done, you are likely getting rotten meat (or, "meat that's not as fresh as it should be," according to the man who tried to back-track). You will 100% of the time get a cut that sucks, because cooking it up well-done masks the flavor and it will be tough anyway, so they do not give you the best cuts. Go for medium or medium-rare instead.

• Buffets. The bane of my existence. The food is often overcooked and left out way too long, causing food-borne illness. Plus, all those sneezes and all the people touching the serving utensils...ugh. Never eat from trays that are mostly empty, as these have been sitting out way too long.

• Serving trays are filthy. They are basically never washed, or, if you're lucky, they're wiped down once a day. Think of all the hands!! One chef recommends that you clean them with sani-wipes and that you get your fast food "to go" even if you are staying in the restaurant, so that you can eat off your own clean containers, like styrofoam or cardboard to-go boxes. Sorry environment.

• One server says passionately, "I never order a drink with lemon. They're never washed, everyone touches them, not just the waiter who's putting it in your drink." I've known this for ages. No one washes the outside peel, so they slice all the nastiness right into the flesh of the lemon, and who knows how many countless hands have touched that lemon? Then your server, who touches menus and people's dirty plates and silverware, plunks a lemon right into your drink. Double groce. There will be NO LEMON IN MY WATER THANK YOU SO VERY DEEPLY.

• Another server says, "If your plates and silverware look clean enough to re-use, we put them right back on the shelves." Fucking...I can't even. What can you say about this atrocity?

• One more quote: "I've seen servers come back from bathroom breaks and not wash their hands, and then they're touching your menu, your drinks, and your food, and it's gross." GROCE

• The longstanding question: Should you send food back to the kitchen if you're not happy with it? Yes, if it is not cooked properly, but God be with you, child, you best BE POLITE. If you are not, please expect bodily secretions in your re-cooked meal.

• Water pitchers. They touch the rim of your glass and every other glass. Glass after glass after glass. HERPES MUCH? One estimate puts "touch down" at 144 glasses (of saliva) per evening. Considering how many people have the herp or a cold or flu, you're bound to catch something.

• Ask for the to-go container to be brought to you instead of letting the server take it back where God knows what will happen with it. They will often touch the food with their bare hands. "Ask for it, pack it yourself, don't let it out of your sight."

Take heed, children, and protect yourself from just SOME of the nastiness you will find at restaurants.