Hurtful Yoghurt
It was a Tuesday morning, and as soon as I woke up, I knew that I would be taking a sick day.
Lying in bed with the alarm still beeping, I bit some dead skin off the side of my thumb and began to wonder how I could feel so rotten and, at the same time, still have a massive erection.
No position that I assumed in bed made the feeling go away, so I got out of bed and drank some pineapple juice. When I was done, I put the juice back in the fridge, walked over to my toilet, and threw it all up. The enchanting circle of life.
“Do I have the pig flu?” I giggled, crouching down in front of the porcelain with my knees shaking and hot “sick” tears streaming down my cheeks. I felt as if the word “pathetic” had jumped out of my Oxford English Dictionary and taken possession of my body and soul.
Not a good way to start the morning.
I texted my boss with one word – “sick” – and went straight back to bed. When she wrote me back, it was not to ask how I was faring, but rather to order me to go to a clinic. I didn’t respond, because I wanted her to think that I’d peacefully passed away. I hated the idea of going to a clinic.
Let me explain.
It’s hard enough getting a video store membership here in Japan, let alone getting medical treatment. Sure, I could probably find a clinic, and sure, I know the Japanese word for “ill,” but from that point on I’d basically have to surrender myself to the medical personnel. They’d have the green light to experiment on my foreign body in any way they saw fit – including liquidizing me (just for kicks) or administering a pap smear.
No thanks. I decided to continue lying in bed, thinking about my sickness. And my erection.
What on earth was happening to me? Why was I suddenly so sick? Was it swine flu? No. I would have been running a fever and experiencing intense muscle pain. One of my students had had the swine flu, and he said that it had made him feel as though his testicles were being sucked up into his body. I’m not sure I understood what he meant by this, but I didn’t pursue the matter, because we’d already exceeded the number of times the word “testicle” can be mentioned in a 45-minute English lesson.
No. My sickness probably had more to do with the yoghurt I’d eaten out of my sink drain the night before.
What happened was, I opened a carton of yoghurt. When I tried to drain the yoghurt juice, I ended up letting the entire contents of the carton splat into the sink by accident.
“Oh shit, then.”
Instead of rinsing the yoghurt away, I took a spoon and attempted to scoop what I could from the drain filter into my mouth – all the while seeing myself, from an imaginary bird’s-eye-view, as a 30-something bachelor eating plain yoghurt out of his sink drain.
Even to my crude, unscientific mind, this appeared to be a very unhealthy thing to do – but, you see, so great was my desire for plain yoghurt. The risk involved somehow made my eating experience all the more pleasurable – as if I were partaking of some exotic, forbidden fruit. I went to bed shortly thereafter, and the sickness didn’t strike until the next day.
My sick day was spent lying in bed, perfectly still, or sitting in my beanbag chair, reading kick-ass short stories and drinking peppermint tea. I’m better now.
