10.03.00
Honestly, I'm not a hypochondriac, but ever since I found out that the cats at the farm have ringworm, and that the strange rash on my arm - which has since been treated and is fully-healed - was ringworm, every time I get a little twinge or an itch, I'm certain I have cooties.
This isn't helped by the fact that my mother and sister got it too, and boy, did that poor little girl get it badly. She has a silver dollar-sized bald spot on the top of her head, and looks like she's been tonsured or something. Hell, she could be an extra in the Name of the Rose. She also has little rashes all over and has to take the most expensive pills* in the world for a while, and get regular rubdowns with topical antifungal goo.
I'm not taking any pills, and I can only topically treat what I can see, so now I'm paranoid that every little itch I have on the back of my head or my shoulder or behind my knees is a hideous fungal infection, bent of making all of the hair on my head fall out, and leaving me all scabby and gross-looking.
That's the sort of thing that can really put a crimp in your social life, if you know what I mean.
*Mom said each pill was $8, and that the prescription cost $198 total. I'll bet she's totally kicking herself for bringing back those two ratty-looking kittens from Colorado, since they were the harbingers of this malady. Of course, Typhoid Gracie is a terribly cute little creature, and she's all better now**, which I'm sure will be of continued comfort to Allie, as she spends the next 3 years growing her bald spot back out.
**The other mangy kitten died, nameless. Disco***, from Disco and Checkers fame, got run over by my mother as she pulled out of the garage, and Celeste's kittens are thankfully clean of the ick (they are a trio of terribly cute little Persian fluffballs). The other cats are all still in varying states of patchy hairless scabbiness. My parent's house looks quite a bit like a feline leper colony****.
***That's right, to be evil and mean for a second, Disco is dead.
****Unclean! Unclean!
