At my library, when someone asks you if you noticed “that skanky girl”, you have to wait, because there must be more information to accompany that, otherwise the possibilities are endless.
It could’ve been the African American girl who used to be pretty until she hit puberty, and now she wears shorts that go straight up her rectum. It must take a while to wedge the denim in there, but she is devoted. She also has a relatively small chest compared with her larger hips, but this does not stop her from walking with her back so arched that she does a better job of pushing her ribs out where her boobies are lacking. I bet her back aches by the end of the day. Today she had on a purple T-shirt that was so small, both vertically and horizontally, that I suspected she stole the shirt from a baby sister. (Emphasis on the baby.) I’m not even going to talk about all the lavender, glitter makeup.
Or it could’ve been the young woman in the pink, rhinestone-studded T-shirt, which, thankfully, was longer than the purple T-shirt of the other girl. “Thankfully” because her jeans were so tight and hung so low, that her muffin-top turned into a muffin-landslide. She had muffin overflowing in places I didn’t know muffins grew. I’m telling you, these pants were tight. I noticed her because she had about 30 keychains on the spiked belt that seemed to facilitate the valiant attempt to keep these pants on her body. They were not built for her. They were not built for someone 30 pounds lighter than her (and she wasn’t overweight). They were built for someone probably 8 years younger than her. She was a prime example of why stretch denim should be outlawed. This fabric does not make it okay to buy clothes six sizes too small.
Or it could have been the motherly woman with a tank top that was far too large, over a bra that was far too small. Or maybe the pre-teen girl with the summer dress that just barely clears her butt cheeks. How young is too young to wear thong underwear, by the way?
So, when my coworker approached me and asked, “Did you see that skanky girl earlier? The one with the pink T-shirt and the spiked belt?” I knew which skanky girl she was talking about.
Unfortunately, the good news ended there.
My coworker continued, “Did you see the ringworm sores all over her arms?”
I made a noise that started off as a scream, which I tried to mute into a gasp, then the air got caught in my intake valve caused me to choke, and the sound resembled that which a squeaky screen door makes when it’s flung open and allowed to slam. Not pretty. That alone could’ve killed me.
My incredulity ruled and I began grilling her about what the sores looked like and if she was familiar enough with ringworm to confidently identify the markings. She described them perfectly.
DAMMIT! We’ve been fungied!
When I was a young lass, my mom contracted ringworm while visiting a friend, who had just bought a new Doberman from a puppy breeder. Clearly this was not a good breeder because the dog was diagnosed with ringworm the very next day, and my mother developed a case so bad that the fungus is still in her, rendering her feet unsuitable for public display, and her big toenail had to be permanently removed. Ringworm is something that has long caused suffering for my mom, and I spent months having to check my body for the sores and avoid contact with my mom.
I do not like ringworm. Ringworm is bad. It is creepy. It is disgusting. It gave me the heebie-jeebies so bad that I could hardly sit still.
My coworker elaborated that there were many sores on this woman’s arms, and she was scratching them like mad when she was speaking with her.
Quickly we did a mental regression to try to remember where we’d seen her, what we thought she might have touched, and then set about to disinfect the area. With gloves, wet wipes and Lysol in hand (not knowing if any of that would work on ringworm), we attacked the OPACs, the doors, the counters and anything else she might have casually touched while she browsed in our library for about an hour. Thankfully, she wasn’t able to get online because she owed too much in fines (which she attributed to her “bad twin”, I kid you not), so we didn’t have to evacuate the computer area. What she was doing in the library for so long, we don’t know. She couldn’t check anything out, either. Clearly, she was just infecting things. Lots of things. Things I don’t even want to know about.
At the end of the night, I had to pee so bad that it actually hurt, and I announced to my desk partner that I’d be right back.
She shouted to me, “You might want to wipe the bathroom down before you go in there.”
OH SHIT! Ringworm Girl might have used the bathroom on her way out! I considered holding it until I got home or running all the way to the staff lounge, but my bladder would not wait or tolerate bounding down stairs. I grabbed a handful of wet wipes and wiped down every surface before I touched it, including the toilet seat and bowl, just in case my clothes brushed them. I was so thoroughly grossed out about cleaning the bathroom, which is notorious for being the recipient of biological graffiti, that I actually held my breath, figuring the rest of my body was thoroughly cootified when I stirred up the germs, that I would not inhale any of the newly launched airborne particles.
When I got out, I said to my partner, “I don’t know if Ringworm Girl used the bathroom, but I think I just came into contact with about 1,000 more germs by cleaning the bathroom, that are probably 1,000 times more dangerous. I should have just peed my pants.”
Sometimes it’s better when you don’t know and don’t take measures to avoid things. Swerving to avoid an accident can lead to bigger accidents.
Ringworm: it’s not the worst thing lurking in the library.
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2 comments:
Crikey. There are no adequate words...
My infected patron had resistant tuberculosis and she had been coughing on me for years. I thought it was a smokers hack but one day she told me and I freaked!
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