Did you ever have a friend who would eat anything? I do mean ANYTHING. When I was little, Ryan was the neighborhood kid who would eat dirt, leaves, twigs, bugs, anything. It was disgusting, but fascinating. The other kids would stand around him and dare him to eat the grossest thing we could think of, which was usually some kind of insect. And when he did, we couldn't look away, but would screw up our face into a contortion that our Moms would say would freeze. But we didn't look away--uh huh--he might not swallow.
When I was on my mission, I was convinced that my companion had a stomach lined with iron. She would eat my share of food that I simply could not eat. My companion and I met an old lady who loved for us to come see her. We taught her the discussions, but it soon became apparent that she wasn't interested in learning about the Gospel, but rather, she wanted to visit with the nice American girls. One of the last times we visited with her, she served us dinner consisting of bean soup and bread. As I was eating (I had consumed about half of the soup), I noticed that Sister B. was no longer eating. Oh she was subtle, that one. But, it was undeniable, she was not eating. When I asked her why, she simply used her spoon to point out something extra in her soup--a maggot. After I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat, I looked in my bowl and saw that I had my own extra protein.
I don't think I've ever come as close to hurling instantaneously as I did at that moment. She, the iron-lined stomach companion, also struggled to contain the contents of her stomach.
A few months later, another companion and I were at a home of some investigators. They had returned from a wedding they attended and shared some of the wedding cake with us. Bulgarian wedding cake is called a torte and is extremely sweet. I never liked eating torte but knew that if I didn't even attempt it, our hosts would be offended.
As I struggled to get down an acceptable amount, I noticed that I had a hair in my torte. I very subtly grasped the end of the hair and began to pull it out. However, it never stopped coming! This hair was about 12 inches long and in the middle of the hair was what looked like a hairball. No, I didn't finish the torte.
Recently, I went to my Dad's garden that he has with one of our cousins. At my cousin's house are a couple of large apple trees (do you see where this is going?). Dad picked up about a half a dozen apples for me to take home. While at work, I ate about 3 bites or so. On my next bite, a large chunk was removed and still in my teeth when something caught my eye. The apple in my hand had movable parts! A lovely, white and black worm was wiggling away. My stomach began to wiggle as I quickly spit out the bite in my mouth and threw the rest of the apple in the trash.
I'll save the story of the flying peach bug or the extra protein in rice for some other time. Excuse me while I go to the bathroom........
2 comments:
That's disgusting and funny at the same time.
The only icky story I've got is the time we went to my grandma's and got out some cold cereal for breakfast. I was finishing up my bowl when I looked a little more closely at some of the black bits of my cereal. You guessed it... oodles of tiny dead bugs.
The moral of this lovely story? Don't accept cold cereal from someone who doesn't eat it themselves. You have no idea how old it is.
The maggots would have done me in for sure. Ahhhh, third-world mission food stories! Makes me glad I stayed home where it is safe!
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