Swimming in Bodily Fluids

by Nathan Lindberg
Even at 11 years old I could tell that bobbing for apples was just plain wrong. It happened at the grade school Halloween party when I watched Wendy Tillinghouse, infected with a cold, wipe her snotty nose on her sleeve and then plunge her face into a tub of cold water trying to bite an apple. After several unsuccessful nips and a freshly cleaned nose, she came up for air and promptly gave up. “Your next,” she told me. I swear I could see some of her phlegm floating next to a red delicious with a bite taken out of it. No apple was worth dysentery.
Now as an adult I go to the public swimming pool in summer time when it’s as full as a Lollapalooza toilet. Babies are naked, old people in diapers, kids who have to pee pee one minute and the next don’t at all. Then I dive in. That water that was just bathing someone’s perineum, the same liquid just ejected by two adolescents having a spitting contest, that same water is now surrounding me, going in my ears, seeping in my nose, tricking into my mouth… it’s like I am licking all the people around me.
But I reassure myself; everyday life involves bathing in germs. It starts in my bed filled with dead skin and mites. Did you know your mattress doubles in weight every eight years? Your pillow does the same in only two years. They are plum full of dead skin and bugs that if they were as big as you and I, they would make Segorni Weaver whimper.
Perils of your toilet do not need to be explained, but did you know your kitchen sink makes your commode look like a dinner plate? In fact your own body after a normal day will be ridiculed with feces. Touch a bathroom door, rub your eye, pick your nose, scratch yourself, and you’ve just left a trail of someone else’s faces all over your body, in and out.
Now imagine yourself stepping into an elevator where someone just took the chance to pass gas. There you are with no choice but to breathe. And that gas continues from the other person’s bowels, into your nose and down your throat. It’s like you are eating parts only tea baggers see. In fact you can think of the air as one big swimming pool and all sorts of floaties are coming your way.
You can kill an occasional cockroach, but face it, we are all immersed in disgust, even if you we use handi-wipes.
So I dive in the public pool, take a breath and swim to the other side. Swimming does have its advantages. You never sweat, or if you do, it doesn’t stay on your body. And chlorine effectively kills everything and so you can be assured of swimming in dead dysentery. And if you have a cold? We’ll try not to think about it. At least we can all feel comforted that the water will turn blue. Won’t it?
by Nathan Lindberg