Please, Don't Eat the Snails

Like the medusa jellyfish, we sometimes feast on what appear to be beautiful, attractive "snails." But the snails turn out to be the seven deadly snails which, once they get lodged in our system, eventually consume us.

When I was a teenager, my biggest fear was that I had a tapeworm growing inside me. This sounds (and looks) ridiculous now. But from as early as I can remember, I was tall for my age, "skinny as a rail," and ate everything and anything in sight. In fact, before potluck suppers, my parents used to feed me at home so that I wouldn't embarrass them at church. By 14, I was 6'2" and 120 pounds. I topped off at 16 when I reached 6'4" in height but only 144 pounds. What stuck out about me most was my adam's Apple. I stayed at 144 pounds until I got married.

People who knew me, and knew of the prodigious amounts of food I could consume, used to say, "Are you sure you don't have a tapeworm?" They said it so many times I started believing it. I went to bed at night with visions of a 12-foot tapeworm in my stomach digesting the eight bologna sandwiches and 10 pints of milk I had eaten during the day (not to mention breakfast, lunch and supper).

Two things cured me of my tapeworm phobia. I put ...