By: Don Martin
To: David Worrell
Re: Jimmy Swaggart's Pedophile Desires

 DM>     How _does_ one find a condom with a "reservoir rim" to
 DM> acommodate one's penis studs? Enquiring minds want to know .
 DM> . .

 DW> I've got a rusty knife that will solve all such problems for them.

    And on that, er, _head_, as it were, I've just come across a
really delightful bit of fish in David Quammen, Natural Acts. New
York: Nick Lyons Books; 1985. pp. 6-7. In the chapter "A Better
Idea", Quammen discusses a species of cod, a very slender small one,
that lives upon sea cucumbers, the pearlfish:

        Pearlfish not only invade sea cucumbers but cooly set up
    housekeeping inside, feeding to some extent off the cucumber's
    internal organs, venturing back outside for additional forage,
    coming and going through the cucumber's anus. When the put-upon
    cucumber tightens its sphincter in an effort to deny entry, the
    pearlfish inserts first its pointed tail like a wedge, and then
    literally torques itself in through the clenched hole in a
    backward corkscrew motion. You'd think the little bugger was
    selling encyclopedias.

    Nor is this the only needle-thin fish that lives inside its
prey; there is in the Amazon a parasitic catfish called the candiru
that has sharp teeth and an appetite for blood:

        It is also equipped with sharp spines angled rearward from the
    sides of its jaw, which serve like the barbs on an arrowhead or
    a fishook: once lodged in position within a host, the candiru
    has a very mean grip. Mainly it victimizes larger fish, whose
    gill openings the candiru enters, following scents of life
    upcurrent along the flow of expelled water as the victim fish
    breathes. But occasionally, in confusion, a stray candiru
    follows the life scents along a different flow: into some human
    so foolhardy as to urinate while bathing naked in candiru
    waters. For this delicate reason, its English name, at least one
    of them, is urethra fish.

    Ponder that for a moment, and know that there are worse things
to befall the putz than the clap. To deal with its problem, the sea
cucumber has a stunning solution: it eviscerates.

        They turn themselves inside out. They blast their own gut
    and internal organs out through their own anus, cast the whole
    smear away into the ocean, evicting in the process a single
    surprised pearlfish. And then--within as little as nine days,
    for some species--the sea cucumber regenerates a complete new
    internal anatomy.

        Mere humans are not so deft. Once a candiru has made its
    painful entry, the problem is quite serious. An authority on the
    subject says, "Since the candiru have gill cover spines pointed
    to the rear, it is already too late once their presence is
    noticed since they cannot simply be pulled out. This has
    repeatedly caused death. If the afflicted individual does not
    want to have blood poisoning he must undergo amputation." In
    which event, needless to say, there is no question of
    regeneration.

    "Now I ask you," Quammen concludes with a smirk worthy of an HS
regular, "Do not those lowly sea cucumbers have one on us?"

... Through a Jaundiced Eye Darkly--Rheum With a View
             (don@balt-rehab.med.va.gov)

 * Origin: Nerve Center - Where the spine is misaligned! (1:261/1000)