Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Bag of worms

I can finally throw away the bag of dead worms in my refrigerator.

For our trip to Philadelphia I brought fruit on the train. Apples and clementines. It was my attempt to have healthy snacks during the ride down. I wasn't sure what would be our food options around the hotel so I wanted some things from the large part of the food pyramid.

They weren't all eaten and ended up in the little kitchenette of our room. The boys actually asked for the clementines on Saturday. I was thrilled! They were asking for fruit.

After eating nearly all but two slices, one guy said "this was in my clementine" and dropped a small thing on the table. It was the length of my pinkie fingernail (I have small nails).

It was a worm. One of the remaining slices looked fine. The other one was full of worms. They didn't move but they were there. In the clementine. That my son was eating.

He thought he ate two worms. So I played it calm. Got them into their bathing suits for the 2nd trip of the day to the hotel pool in the basement. While they changed I left a message with the pediatrician's office that I thought my son had eaten some dead worms in his clementine. Not being an expert on worms I don't know if they can play dead. Or if they could come back to life. In my kid's intestines.

Once down at the pool the nurse called me back. While she thought everything would be o.k. "since they appear dead" she told me to watch my son for stomach pain and bloody stuff coming out of him (oh lovely). She also stressed I should hold on to the remaining worms for a week just in case anything were to happen.

"That way we can test them to see what is going on."

I'm happy to report my son didn't become the host of a colony of resurrecting parasitic worms. I can throw away that bag in my fridge.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Glad it turned out not serious! I would have never thought to refrigerate the worms!

Anonymous said...

Oh man.

When I return I am getting tested for every parasite I can get tested for.

At least your guy showed it to you, when I was younger I might have not told anyone and just been afraid that I ate worms and was going to somehow die because of it. I say that not to exagerrate but because that's what I did when I got a rubber band stuck up my nose when I was 5. I don't think I told my Mom about that until I was...oh...16?

Anonymous said...

Wow Allison. I will never be able to eat a clementine again!

Alex Elliot said...

The same thing happened to my brother when he was in high school. Just what I would need around my house in addition to all my current just came back from a trip clutter: dead worms.

Anonymous said...

January 10, 2009
I just experienced the same thing. I was surfing for information on the internet regarding these small, dead worms in the clementines. Clementines came from spain. I ate the clementine almost entirely before I realized the last two segments had worms.

Ruined my appetite....glad they were dead.