African Crotch Disease

Read It and Itch

This morning as I nibbled daintily on my cholesterol clogging pastries and serenely sipped my double-strength espresso I stumbled upon the latest Amy Winehouse news: She has the creeping crud on her face and it is highly contagious.

The singer has been diagnosed with impetigo, her spokesman confirms to PEOPLE.

It's a bacterial skin infection that causes pimple-like lumps – and is "is highly contagious, and scratching or touching the sores is likely to spread the infection to other parts of the body as well as to other people," according to the Mayo Clinic's Web site. As for how the singer's feeling, "She's fine," a pal tells PEOPLE. "She's not hiding away. She's never been one to care what people think."

That is almost enough to take a Disco Diva off her feed... Yuck, whatta visual.

Unfortunately Amy's creeping face crud story brought back some nasty flashbacks from my diva-in-training days.



It was the last month of school, during my senior year, and we had just finished a particularly brutal track practice and I was in agony. My blisters had blisters and I was literally dragging my polyester clad butt from the locker room down the hall to the door that led outside. My best friend, who was also on the track team, and I had taken off our track shoes and peeled off our socks (and half of our skin) and were walking barefoot down the hall when our very, very crabby and pre-PC school janitor (they were called janitors back then) spied us crawling down the hall and yelled:

"Hey, what in the hell is wrong with you girls? Put your gawd damn shoes back on before you catch African Crotch Disease!"

As tired as we were we still had to laugh...AFRICAN CROTCH DISEASE? WTF was that? What happens if you catch it, do your naughty bits get all hot and steamy? Do you suddenly sprout crotch vines? Do jungle sounds emanate from your panties? It became the diagnosis for everything that ailed us: Developed a cough? African Crotch. Got a big zit on your nose? African Crotch. Pulled a hamstring? African Crotch.

Yucka, yucka, yucka... until the week before graduation when I noticed that what had started out as a tiny pimple on my check, close to my ear, was growing larger and nastier by the hour. I slathered on industrial strength zit cream every five minutes but that just made it worse. I managed to hide the growing nastiness by pulling my hair over my face (very 1970s--no one thought anything of it) until my mother, in disgust bellowed "How many times do I have to tell you to get your hair off of your face, how can anyone see you if....." and as she flicked my hair back she saw my shame: Yes, I had not heeded the janitor's warning and now had a rampant case of African Crotch Disease... for the whole world to see. Literally keeping me at arm's length, she dragged me to the doctor's office where I could feel every eye on my face and could almost hear people whispering "OMG, look at her---she has African Crotch Disease! I bet she was walking barefoot and caught it. Dear God, why didn't anyone warn her?"

Our family doctor took one look, turned off the overhead lights, and shined a black light on my face crud. My mind spazed with the thought that I was going to end up in a medical journal "Girl with Rare African Crotch Disease found on Long Island"

Sheyat, why hadn't I kept my damn shoes on after practice that day?

The doctor gave a laugh (What a callous bass-tard! If it is fatal will he roll around on the ground in mirth? )

"That's quite a well-developed ring worm she's got there!"

I had ring worm? Not African Crotch Disease?

Turns out that picking up stray kittens and rubbing them on your face is just as stupid as walking down the hall of your high school barefoot.

My friends of course, did not buy the ringworm diagnosis, and I became known as the girl with African Crotch Disease...and oh yeah, my graduation pictures were f'n lovely, with huge bandages on the side of my face.

Wildcat News

The Wildcat women had a great weekend, smacking the Mizzery Tiggers around 81-52:

Kicking Butt and Takin' Names


Shalee Lehning matched her career high with 21 points, and No. 21 Kansas State moved into a first-place tie in the Big 12 with an 81-52 win over Missouri on Saturday.

The Wildcats, picked to finish eighth by the league's coaches in the preseason poll, are tied with Baylor, which lost at Texas A&M earlier in the day.

A win at Kansas on Wednesday would give the Wildcats at least a share of their second-ever Big 12 title.

The victory gave Kansas State (20-8, 12-3) its fifth 20-win season in the last six years.

Lehning also had 11 rebounds for her sixth double-double of the season, made all seven shot attempts and was 7-for-8 from the foul line.

Kansas State senior Kimberly Dietz scored 19 points and was 5-of-12 from 3-point range in her final home game. Marlies Gipson and Ashley Sweat each added 13 points.

The Wildcat men played this weekend too. How did they do, you ask? The Wildcat women had a great weekend, smacking the Mizzery Tiggers around 81-52...

Sigh

Other Wildcat news

In what is an unprecedented move, the Big 12 announced today that it is changing the name of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Rookie of the Week Award to the Michael Beasley Award and it has gone ahead and named Michael as the recipient for the remainder of the season....

déjà vu all over again...and again...and again...and again...and again






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