• Stir in cup corn syrup into the peanut butter.
• Pour in the soap and a full bottle of red food coloring.
• Add the remaining corn syrup. Add blue food coloring drops until you get the right color.
• Pour into a bottle and go find someone to stab (for pretend)!
Fright Night
You might not need to leave the house to get goo and guts galore on Halloween. According to the website Pumpkin Nook, the innards of the pumpkin are referred to as brains, guts, sinew, goop, goo, and pumpkin slime. Sounds pretty yicky to us.
Halloween High Jinks
Gummy worms? That’s nothing. How about gummy snakes? Or while the guests at your Halloween party have their hands in a bowl of peeled grapes, bring out the eyes of terror gumballs! The sight alone will send shivers down their spines. And don’t forget to get infested. Cockroach bites have a nice realistic crunch to them.
Jawbreaker Horror
Regular old lollipops are so last century. How about a scorpion sucker instead! Then again, you could always go for the sour candies called Toxic Waste (yes, you really can buy—and eat—both of these things). If you’d rather go for real and not just realistic, maybe you’d be more interested in chocolate-covered cockroaches or other Mouthwatering Frights.
You really can’t get much grosser than Gummy Boo Boos Candy Scabs. From the Candy Warehouse website:
“You’ve skinned your elbow while crashing your bicycle getting extreme over a gnarly jump in your neighborhood. You cry to your mommy and she gently places a bandage over the bloody spot. Two days later, you peel back the bandage to reassess the damage. That same spot is now oozy in the middle and crusty at the edges! SO NASTY! You know you want to lick that puss spot…don’t deny it…and now you can… with Candy Scabs!”
The only thing worse than the cruel and barbaric practices of ancient history are the cruel and barbaric practices of today.
Pokey-Man
Sticking dozens of tiny needles in someone’s skin—including their face? Okay, that must be some primitive medicine like bloodletting (see Let My Blood Go), leech therapy, or ritual sacrifice. Wrong! It’s just a day in the life of your friendly neighborhood acupuncturist. The customer is the one who willingly subjects himself or herself to repeated needle insertion. The practice comes from the Chinese tradition of alternative medicine. It doesn’t actually hurt as much as it looks really disturbing. So keep your eyes shut!
Eyes Wide Open
When you get retinal eye surgery, the surgeon has to take out your entire eye bulb. We’re guessing you’re not awake while this happens. If you are, that would definitely be a sight for sore eyes—your own.
Did You Know? Acupuncture began by accident when the ancient Chinese noticed that when arrow wounds didn’t kill the victim, they often helped solve various ailments, including asthma. Pretty good proof that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
3, 2, 1, Liftoff!
Astronauts have to wear a form of diapers. But on a rocketship, they go by a somewhat classier, more discreet name: Maximum Absorbency Garments. Yikes—anything with maximum absorption must be able to carry quite a load when full.
You Look a Little Pale
Blood-injection-injury phobia is classified by the DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Experts believe it’s a disorder learned through trauma. An elevated heart rate and/or fainting at the sight of blood or during a medical procedure are common. As we mentioned earlier, some people argue that it may have once been an adaptive trait that allowed members of a group who fainted during an attack to have been left for dead by the enemy and ended up surviving.
In Praise of Stinky Feet
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided a grant to recreate foot odor in mosquito traps as part of a malaria-prevention project. This works because mosquitoes are attracted to the smell of sweaty feet. Well, to each his own.
The Return of the Maggots
In 2005, a woman named Pam Mitchell had a minor cut that got infected. The infection got so bad that eventually her doctor recommended amputation. As a last resort, Ms. Mitchell tried maggots, desperate to avoid the chopping block. She received 600 on one foot and 400 on the other, all alive and wrapped up in bandages. We don’t know how long she had to walk around as a maggot factory. But, most importantly, did it work? Reportedly, yes. And her doctor seemed to agree.
Did You Know? Maggot therapy works by “debridement”—peeling away dead tissue.
Superbugs Fighting…Superbugs
Another roach sighting; better call the exterminator! Maybe not. It turns out that cockroaches may have something we want—a chemical that is toxic to harmful bacteria. British researchers have located molecules that can kill E. coli as well as the bacteria that causes staph infections inside the brains of none other than the soon-to-be guests at your local roach motel. (Locusts contain this chemical, too, though for most of us they tend to be less local.)
Bedside Gamble
On average, 100,000 people die a year from hospital-related infections or medical mistakes.
Did You Know? Surgeons are used to patients arriving with severed limbs in a bag of ice. Sometimes they’re useable. But other times the body parts can’t be sewn on and are consigned to the trash bin. Don’t worry, there’s a special trash for this kind of debris.
Be an Expert! It’s not uncommon to replace a missing thumb with a patient’s big toe. Wonder what the patient says the next time he or she feels particularly clumsy. “I’m all thumbs!” (Well, not anymore.)
Lessons from a Rat
Smell and disgust are designed partially to prevent food poisoning. A rat that eats a substance that makes him sick won’t eat that substance again. That’s an example of a conditioned taste aversion, an area of study pioneered by psychologist Edwin Ray Guthrie, who established the Law of Contiguity. The law says that a stimulus gets associated with a certain response whether or not there was a causal relationship. The rat that gets sick after eating a piece of chocolate and never eats it again is exhibiting one-trial learning. This is compared with your uncle Bob who gets sick once again from that fourth helping of Christmas pudding, just like he does every year. No one-trial (or two-trial or three-trial) learning going on there. We don’t need to bother comparing humans to dolphins to determine who’s smarter. Our bet is we can safely set the bar a little bit lower.
Be an Expert! Unlike blood pudding, Christmas pudding is a legitimate dessert, but it contains “suet”, which is basically beef fat collected from deposits near the kidneys and loins of a cow.
The Cure Will Kill You
The side effects of some medicines are enough to make you run screaming from the doctor’s office. Here are just a few side effects commonly listed for widely advertised modern drugs:
• skin rashes
• blindness
• coughing up blood
• black hairy tongue (for more details on that unfortunate predicament, see Furry Lingua)
• amnesia
• internal bleeding
• loss of senses
• heart attack or stroke that leads to death
Keep in mind these are all just things the medication might introduce. They’re not related to the original problem you were trying to eradicate by taking medicine in the first place.
IN THE KNOW
Eradicate: to get rid of
Illegal Beans
Pythagoras, namesake of your trusty Pythagorean Theorem, was a Greek mathematician and philosopher who lived in the 500s B.C. Sure, he contributed to number theory and influenced Plato, yadda yadda yadda, but more importantly, he put a prohibition on the eating of beans. No explanation has survived, but later philosophers speculated that the brilliant thinker worried that farts would interfere with mental well-being and a good night’s sleep. Try using that argument the next time you hear your dad channeling Louis Armstrong under the table.
Unique Knickknack
People have all different tastes in jewelry: some people like charm bracelets, some like old-fashioned pearls, and then of course there are those who like to wear their jewelry… alive! In 2010, a woman’s brooch was seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection because it was a live beetle. (And the beetle itself was wearing jewels.) Apparently, the daring fashionista needed a live plant pest importation document in order to bring her brooch into the country.
A Pinot Noir, Please, and Step on It
Sounds like a joke your kid brother would tell, but this one’s true. Wine used to be made from stomping on grapes with bare feet, a custom that appears to date back to ancient Rome. This tradition continued right up until a decade or so ago. Guess a stranger’s piggy toes and a romantic dinner for two just didn’t go that well together. Certain countries still do the grape-stomp dance, so you if you’re lucky you’ll still be able to get a taste of some random person’s bare feet after all. (Let’s hope they skipped the toe rings and kept toe lint to a minimum.)
Here, Little Roachie
New Yorkers are typically more scared of cockroaches than of getting mugged, but the widely despised insect is considered a delicacy in some countries. In others, they’re kept in the house alive and well…on purpose. In Australia, for example, a lack of space in urban areas has led to an increase in cockroaches being considered a member of the family. The rhinoceros cockroach (also known as the giant borrowing cockroach) can live up to a decade and, according to pet-store owners, is one of the most popular breeds. Rhino roaches are clean and safe for children. Some stores have taken to calling them “litter bugs” or “rain beetles” to give the world’s heftiest roach a wider appeal.
“There is nothing per se that is yucky about cockroaches. The ick factor is all psychological. Cockroaches are nice, lovely, interesting animals.”
BIOLOGIST DR. MARLENE ZUK
Author of Riddled with Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are
Playing Dead
He’s not actually a dead body; he just plays one on TV. Lots of people teach their dogs to play dead, but Chuck Lamb, aka “Dead Body Guy,” taught himself, by taking self-portraits that looked as if he’d been killed in all different ways, including being smashed by the automatic garage door or bludgeoned at his desk. He then posts the gruesome photos to his blog. Mr. Lamb’s life dream was to play a dead guy onscreen, and he finally made it, cast as a corpse in
The Book of the Dead and Kentucky Horror Show and landing an appearance in a body bag for the series Stiffs. In case there wasn’t enough mutton lying around in their freezer, the Carnegie Deli hung a picture of Lamb in his favorite repose, an indisputable sign that Dead Body Guy’s fantasies had finally come to life.
Barbaric Amulet
Some people carry a lucky rabbit’s foot (not so lucky for the rabbit) on a keychain or in their pocket as a talisman to bring good fortune. The fur is often dyed a bright color. In North America, there are certain stipulations attached to the “lucky” foot, including that the rabbit was either found in a graveyard or shot, that it’s a left foot, and that the foot must be cut off before the rabbit is killed. So, let’s hop to it. Is this your lucky day? How about a nice four-leaf clover or horseshoe instead?
How Low Will You Go?
What would you do for a million dollars? Would you confront the things that terrify you? Shows like Survivor, The Mole, and especially Fear Factor have tested the outer limits of grossness tolerance. Some contestants swim in blood, some have buckets of cockroaches dumped on them, and others have to eat insects.
Give Me Cow Dung or Give Me Death—or Both
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus had a strange relationship to excrement. He thought that cow manure would help ease his edema. Acting on that belief, Heraclitus dunked himself in a nice hot tub of fresh cow droppings. We’ll never know if it would have cured the swelling because the swollen wise man ended up meeting his end in that tub, drowning in cow dung. Have you ever heard the phrase “No man steps in the same river twice”? Maybe whoever first said it was thinking of poor Heraclitus. Once he stepped in, he never stepped out.
IN THE KNOW
Edema: a condition where fluid collects and leads to swelling in various organs
HEINOUS HOBBIES
A man named Barney Smith keeps a collection of toilet seats alongside various other odd paraphernalia, including sets of false teeth and license plates. Hey, whatever floats your boat. (On second thought, a ship collection would be way too mainstream for this odd duck.) Still, this is all pretty tame compared to the couple that collected so much garbage in their house, they couldn’t get out (see Don’t Keep Your Trash Heap).
I See Your Guitar and Raise You One Eyebrow
Have you ever seen a one-man band? We’ll bet you’ve never seen this variety—a man in Arkansas can play with bells attached to his eyebrows.
Barbaric Amulet
Some people carry a lucky rabbit’s foot (not so lucky for the rabbit) on a keychain or in their pocket as a talisman to bring good fortune. The fur is often dyed a bright color. In North America, there are certain stipulations attached to the “lucky” foot, including that the rabbit was either found in a graveyard or shot, that it’s a left foot, and that the foot must be cut off before the rabbit is killed. So, let’s hop to it. Is this your lucky day? How about a nice four-leaf clover or horseshoe instead?
Gross Collections
When it comes to collections, forget boring old Matchbox cars, stamps, and coins. Get your mind in the gutter! How about trying out these ideas for a bit of boorish fun. These are real-life collections that people like to keep:
• Naval fluff (aka belly lint)
• Clipped fingernails
• Beard clippings
• Burned food
Divided Afterlife
The French Cardinal La Grange had an unusual post-mortem request: to bury his bones at Avignon and the rest of what was left at Amiens. It certainly gives a new meaning to “dividing up an estate”.
Crying Milk
You know not to cry over spilled milk, but you may gag when you see Jim Chicon snort it out his eye! We don’t know how he figured out that he could do it. Maybe he took his cue from the horny toad, who shoots something even worse out of his (see Did You Know? in Outlandish Animals).
Mean Machine
History buffs should think twice before making their own guillotine. In one instance, a fake model led to a very real disaster. A man in Washington lost his arm when he was cleaning his overly accurate facsimile. A nearby woman saw the man running around, gushing blood with a missing arm and said she hoped it was a Halloween costume. (By strange coincidence, the accidental chopping took place in October.) Sadly, it was not. Police found the arm left at the scene of the hacking.
CAREERS FOR GROSSOPHILES
Various jobs you might want to consider post-graduation, if you can stomach them:
• Make-up artist for dead people
• Scatologist: someone who studies ancient excrement
• Forensic pathologist: a doctor who conducts autopsies to determine the cause of death. From watching crime shows, you may know this role as a medical examiner, or M.E. (Bonus: You can vent endlessly to office mates about the stress of the job without fear of repercussion.)
• Bad-breath evaluator. Really! There are people who have to rate people’s dragon breath in order to test various “fresh-breath” products.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Well, if you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, break out the industrial-strength hand sanitizer. The Discovery Channel has a show called Dirty Jobs, a showcase for those brave workers doing the jobs no one else wants to do, including sewer inspector, fish factory worker, worm dung farmer, roadkill cleaner, owl vomit collector, and maggot farmer.
Bring in the Horns
Pythagoras (see Illegal Beans) would have surely debated him, but Roman Emperor Claudius would be a welcome addition to your
junior-high lunchroom. The windy ruler created a law allowing farting at banquets on the grounds that retaining gas could be harmful to your health.
One Bag the Airlines Still Aren’t Charging for
There is an online museum dedicated to airsickness bags. People who donate bags to the museum’s collection are identified as “Patrons of Puke.” Let’s hope none of the bags are used.
Animal Friendly
One original thinker has an unusual take on the omnivore’s dilemma–he eats only animals that have been killed accidentally. Whether it’s a rat, dog, badger, or bat, there’s always room on Arthur Boyle’s plate for roadkill, preferably fresh. (Wonder if he draws the line at hominoids…)
Reappearing Mice
If you or a friend has ever had a pet snake, you may have seen frozen mice in the freezer, ready for mealtime. That wily snake can swallow them whole. Big deal, right? But did you know some people can swallow them whole, too? (Why they would want to is another question all together.) One Jewish German circus performer named Waldo, known as the “Regurgitating Geek” could not only swallow a mouse whole but, you guessed it, regurgitate it back up alive and well. He trained himself to do the same with fish, frogs, and even rats. If anyone ever asks you to join their regurgitating act, just say yuck!
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