Disgusting no more

Not that I've been a parent long (8 days to be exact), but already I'm noticing the increased tolerance for all things decidedly unpleasant. Babies, as the parents amongst us will attest, are poop-generating mega machines. Laws of physics do not apply to them - they crap out more waste product than the amount of fuel they are provided.

Proof that my gross-out tolerance is inching higher came a few days ago while I was in a doctor's office, making my last sales call for the day. The call was typical - I walked in, reminded the receptionist who I was and what I was doing there (I've been in this office twice a month for the past 11 months, and she still doesn't remember me), and asked her if the doctors were ok on their samples. While she checked, one of the doctors came running out of the patient room and spotted me. "You!" she ordered. "You, come up help me!"

I had never met this doctor (there are several in the practice) so to make sure, I looked around and realized that the physician was definitely referring to me. After a split-second of thought to determine if I would be violating any rules, I decided I was ok, and I followed her into the back of the office. I was led into one of the patient rooms, where I was greeted by a nice, eighty-year old lady sitting on the examining table.

"Ok, I want you to hold her right ear open. Grip it tight and pull out on it," ordered the doctor.

I started to worry that I was going to hurt the elderly patient, but it was obvious from the doctor's tone of voice that she wanted me to do exactly as she said. So I grabbed hold of the patient's left ear, and yanked out on it. Surprisingly, the poor old lady didn't object, so I relaxed a little.

The doctor then positioned herself near the lady's left shoulder, and stuck some instruments into the patient's ear cavity while using a pen light.

"Hm," I think. "Just a normal ear exam." The doc just needed my help keeping the ear open.

Which is when the doctor started extracting golf-ball sized dollops of ear wax from within this lady's ear. I'm not joking about the size of these monstrosities. They were huge. And glistening. And colored an ungodly shade of orange.

My normal reaction would have been to instantly hurl out the contents of my stomach, which that day would have consisted of Panera Bread's excellent Sierra Turkey sandwich with chipotle mayo. That would have been a fun sight - me holding on to an old lady's left ear lobe while projecting vomit onto her and her doctor.

But that didn't happen. You see, in the eight days that I've had my baby, I've already been pooped and urinated on multiple times. I'm not counting the times that I've had half-digested milk regurgitated onto my clothes, nor the number of times that spittle has just been discharged onto my face. And the diaper changes - oh, the diaper changes! Baby crap starts out this tarry black color, then gradually makes its way across the color spectrum, making pit stops at dark green and mustard yellow. Baby books euphemistically describe the consistency of these discharges as "small, round, curd-like, about the shape and size of cottage cheese."

Needless to say, I've completely sworn off cottage cheese for the rest of my life. But at least my gross-out tolerance is way up.