As some of you already know. I used to be in the service of Uncle Sam’s Navy. Bittersweet years to be sure, but there are a number of tips, tricks, skills, and super powers that I acquired during those years that make every time I got drunk and raped by a marine totally worth it. Paramount of these is my immunity to Rim-Fire.
For any laymen out there, “rim-fire” is a medical catch-all term referring to any condition that is the result of MLVSFTAS or Molten-Lava-Violently-Shooting-From-The-Ass Syndrome. MLVSFTAS afflicts an estimated 100% of Americans every year, usually during travel.
Physical symptoms include Molten Lava Violently shooting from one’s ass. Psychological symptoms can range from weeping on the toilet and wishing for a bidet, to socially crippling fart fear. It is believed to be at least partly caused by over sensitive “secondary taste buds” located on the mucous membrane just within the anus. These are most often triggered by the zesty spicy flavor of what-ever it was you ate last (usually large amounts of Capsaicin derived from many edible peppers)
“Well, that’s great information, Dick. But how do I protect myself and my family from Rim-Fire?”
Well I’m glad you asked. You see, there isn’t much you can do about the “voilently shooting from the ass” part. But you CAN keep it from feeling like molten lava when it does. All it takes is some “intestinal fortitude” (damn I’m good)
Here’s how I cured myself of Rim-Fire permanently… and completely by accident:
While stationed on my first ship, the USS Shreveport (LPD 12), I noticed one day that they added sliced pickled jalapeos to the salad bar in the galley. They previously had pickled whole jalapeos that were of dubious quality, but these new ones were very much like the ones I would buy at the store for like $6 a jar. Awesome!
So being the beyond frugal tight wad that I am, I made it a point to take advantage of this and get my jalapeo fix while on board the ship.
Normally I would have brought a jar with me to work and filled it up at lunch time and smuggled jalapeos home every day, but as it was, we were on deployment, which means there was no going home at the end of the day because we were underway in the North Arabian Sea, on a seven month cruise. Therefore the only thing I could do to “take advantage” was to eat as many as I could stand with every meal. So thats what I did.
Some ships have plates, but the Shreveport had trays with little compartments on them, just like you have in primary school. What I would do, is fill one of those compartments with peppers and sit down and eat them with my meal. Lunch and Dinner. Every day.
“Well, how did you avoid getting Rim-Fire, Dick?”
Simple. I DIDN’T. Every day found me breathing heavy in a cold sweat, white knuckles gripping the toilet seat. Sometimes trembling over the prospect of my ass delivering a second, or a third load of what had to have been nitric acid. When I finished, I’d inspect my dropping and find that all had dissolved into the water, leaving only seeds and stems floating like driftwood on a marbled sea of green.
“Why the hell did you keep eating them then?”
I kept eating them because I really am that cheap. I will admit, however, that I have oft used myself as a guinea pig, and the extreme boredom encountered on a 7 month deployment will cause one to overlook the soul-destroying pain involved in experiments in giving oneself diarrhea… well for me anyway. So I suppose the novelty of sabotaging my own bowels may have had a certain attraction.
The Point is: Every day it became a little more tolerable and eventually the pain ceased entirely. As if I’d burned those taste buds right off. And the whole process took maybe a month. Now I can eat anything.
I’m not afraid of food poisoning or stomach viruses anymore either. If I eat something that I suspect may have been crawling with parasites, I just go ahead and gulp down a swallow of El Yucateco or some Tabasco, and let my stomach acid take care of the rest. No food poisoning.
fin
SARACANITE 