Parasites, or how not to make friends

"Well you can't have chicken pox twice", said my doctor, suspiciously eying my welted freak of a body.

Let me back up.

I was never the "cool kid", instead being the girl with coke-bottle glasses, pink moon boots, and an oversized army surplus camp jacket, trying to somehow fit in with the other fifth graders.

But when we all went to summer camp a week before fifth grade began, I hadn't a clue I would sign and seal my fate as an "untouchable", nor did I know I would have the worst vacation ever (well, until 8th grade, then college, and, well, let's just say most vacations are epically awful).

It started when my best friend at the time demanded she get the coveted top bunk, and I was too painfully unassertive to speak up, and then, get this- she hid her Haribo gummy bears. I would eagerly await Christmas for her German Granny to send her a package and share two or three sweet jewels of Haribo with me, and she HID THEM FROM ME. This began the end of our friendship. 

Then, each camp cabin had to design its own flag with endangered animals and I was like (insert nerd snort) I'm all over this, I totally know all about endangered animals; heck I read the entire Audobon Encyclopedia last year. So I chose the three-spines unarmored stickleback, a cute little minnow fish native but endangered to our local streams. But all the girls thought fish were "eeew" and chose a panda bear. Much to my chagrin, not only did they veto my fish, but since I was artistic, they voted me in to be the artist of their dumb panda. In retrospect, I should have dressed up the panda in a stickleback outfit, but I thought of that 25 years too late.

Then, we had to do square dancing, God's cruel joke on any awkward child, child who cannot dance, shy child, etcetera. Being the last to be chosen for P.E. (always with a groan, do we have to pick her?) I was the last picked for the dance, and told to dance with some other social outcast, a chubby boy who "had a boner, eeew" giggled some popular girl next to me. I wasn't sure what a boner was, but I was cautious and figured it had to do with his clammy hands. It was the longest 3 minute dance ever and right after, I ran to the only telephone to beg through choking tears for my mom to come get me NOW. She declined.

And if that wasn't enough...

We had a communal shower, and I went in for my prescribed shower time and a gaggle of girls turned at me in horror, screaming "you cannot come in here, oh my gosh eeeeew just look at you!" I looked down near my lady bits to which they were pointing in horror and saw scratched-up bumps and redness which seemed to be spreading. I was banned from the shower for the entire week and told I could only use the toilet at specific times. 

So now I was the nerdy girl with some weird rash who smelled awful. Great.

I called my mom again, choking back tears, and this time she came and got me right away when I said "bumpy rash", since my mom and I both have severe allergies that can go from rash to anaphylaxis in minutes.

"You can't get chicken pox twice, so it can't be that"  mused my doctor, suspiciously eying my welted freak of a body. "Must be scabies. Tell her to stay away form road kill next time" he said, and ushered us out, after handing my mom some kind of stinky salve. Great, now I would smell like antibiotic cream, just what I needed.

"Mom, why did he tell me to stay away from road kill? I don't touch road kill", I asked as we walked to the car. "Well, because your dad had scabies once from touching road kill, remember all those scabs he was always scratching" she said; "maybe its from the hide on your sled, or the raven in the freezer" she exclaimed, as if mentioning the weather or some other small-talk idea and not rotting animals around the house.

See, my dad collects roadkill. There was indeed a frozen raven snuggling up to the Haagen Dahz, and a rotting buffalo hide stretched across my snow sled by the front door. Totally normal. And I had to beg my dad to shake off the rattle (from a rattlesnake) off the frozen peas so I could make dinner.

It's odd how twenty-some years later, you look back in reflection and think, did I really have scabies? So you "ask Dr. Google" (Never go down that path, you will diagnose yourself with too many rare, incurable diseases. Why yes I do feel a little sleepy, OMG I have typhoid fever!) and find out...

a)    It was totally chicken pox because now research says in rare cases you can get chicken pox twice, take that Doctor Cibelli.

b) It wasn't scabies. I am not denying that scabies is little creatures that burrow into your skin and freaking lay eggs. Bug. Eggs. In. Your. Skin. I mean I totally admit I've had dysentery and tapeworm s http://disorderlywanderlustblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-tale-of-tijuana-tapeworm.html but it wasn't scabies because the only symptom I had was creepy bumps, whereas I had all the chickenpox symptoms. 

c)   Don't google chicken pox or scabies if you have  trypophobia (fear of holes).

d)    Don't google how to spell trypophobia unless you want to have to drink away the creepy images that burned into your mind all night after having seen it on the computer

e) I know why I have trypophobia.

I have trypophobia because yes my dad did pick at his scabs but no it wasn't scabies. See, people who snort methamphetamine get side effects (really? Snorting bleach and sudafed has side effects, who knew? And who came up with meth, I mean I'm not going around mixing pills and cleaners and thinking whoa I could totally get high off this, OMG my are my nostrils bleeding). One side effects is you hallucinate that your skin is crawling and the itching is so real in a sense that you scratch holes ingot your body, which then scab over but you think the bugs are still in there and so you scratch the scabs, a never-ending cycle of trypophobia-induced horror.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.