I Got Worms

Ok I probably don’t actually have worms. But I’ve gotten as close as I’m ever gonna get to using that Jim Carrey line from “Dumb and Dumber” and having it be true.

I’d bought a kilo of apple custard fruits the other day at a market in Nha Trang, and given most of them away to my friends. I came home with one left and was sooo excited to eat it.

I’d never tasted an apple custard fruit before I came to Vietnam, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite fruits on earth (along with lychees, passionfruit, mangoes and mangosteen). On the outside, it looks like a pale green hand grenade. On the inside, it’s a soft, almost mushy, white fruit with black seeds. I don’t know how to describe the flavor. All I know is it’s delicious.

So I’m in my room, sinking my teeth into this amazing fruit…I’m about halfway through when I see an itty bitty white worm slithering around inside.

At first I thought my eyes were going wonky. But my eyes were perfectly fine, and it really was a worm! My eyeballs nearly fell out of my face and I had a moment of panic. I’d only seen that before in cartoons – not in real life! And what if I actually ate some of them?

I ran downstairs to the lobby and tried with all my might to explain my predicament to the couple that runs the place. They don’t speak a single word of English, and I have no idea how to say “worm” in Vietnamese, or that I’m worried about having possibly eaten one.

So I put on a dazzling display of charades:

• Thy with invisible fruit in hand.
• Thy bites into invisible fruit.
• Thy looks at invisible fruit and gasps in horror.
• Thy clasps her arms together and pretends to slither around like a worm.
• Thy points to belly.
• Thy makes a scared face.
• Thy pretends to be a worm again.
• Thy makes a confused face to ask if she should be concerned and see a doctor.

Hysterical laughter ensues.

When they realized what I was trying to say, they assured me I was fine, and there’s no need to see a doctor.

I knew I was overreacting, and even though my panic subsided, I was still imagining little worms crawling all over my insides. Then I remembered my friend Ron had recently told me he grew up on a fruit farm back in Washington State. Here is the ridiculous Facebook message I sent him titled “Don’t Laugh”:

Alas, I am fine. Ron tells me that if I did indeed eat any of those worms, the acids in my stomach would’ve killed em, and it’s worms that form from drinking bad water that I should be worried about. Always the joker, he also tells me I should be more concerned about “those weird bumps from Vegas” but that I should embrace them and trade them like baseball cards to willing participants.

Thanks Ron!

Well, it’s been almost a week since this happened (the worm, not the imaginary Vegas bumps). And I’m fine.

Phew!