So there’s this thing in Long Beach where multiple food trucks are near the boardwalk and in each one there is fair priced food. I go there sometimes for their seafood and amazing smoothies. I was ecstatic when I saw that a new food truck had been put where an open spot was. It was kind of weird because no truck had ever been there before but I figured that they just needed more space. It was called Pork Chop- the best pork chops you’ll ever have. The name was unoriginal and pretty lazy so I was a bit dodgy at first. The white truck looked beaten down and old. There were stains on the side but I can see that the owner tried to clean it off. The paint was peeling on the sides and there was a cheaply painted pig on the front. It looked like the Looney Tunes pig smiling and holding up a plate of pork.
Understand that my favorite food component was meat, especially pork. I’m basically a meat-a-tarian (the opposite of vegetarian). So what if it looks a bit worn down it has pork and its cheap, I thought. I ran over to the food truck and rung the little bell on the side. A man, who looked like your average guy to sell hot dogs at a street fair, popped his head up from the counter with a big smile. The suddenness made me flinch.
“How may I help you sir? We specialize in cooking pork and we believe in quality, not price,” he said.
What he said was true, all the food was under five dollars. Since I haven’t been to the fair in a while, I wanted something special so I went to the specials menu. “Pork Pork” which was basically just pork in a bun sloppy joe Style, “Pork Chops” which is what you think, and a few others but the one that caught my attention was “Daredevils Pork”. I almost hesitated to ask because when I looked up at him he was staring at me with that smile.
I asked anyway.
“Uh, what’s Daredevi…”
I wasn’t even finished with my sentence when he cut me off and said, “Oh, well you’ll just have to wait and see it’s not called Daredevils pork for nothing! It’s for the ones on the brave and adventurous side. If you buy and eat the whole thing, we’ll give you a pork ticket so you can come back later and get one free meal!”
The tone in his voice made me a bit uneasy. For about a 28 year old man it sounded high-pitched like a child waiting to get candy and waa unnaturally chipper.
“Yea…I'll have that one,” I said, trying to avoid making eye contact.
He jumped up and started cooking in the back. I walked to my seat with my hands jammed in my pockets, thinking this is probably his payday because he said we. The thing is there was only one person in the truck. I started thinking about how many red flags this put up: Beaten down truck, extremely cheap food, super creepy probably a pedophile cook/worker, and the strange aroma coming from the truck but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Before I could think anymore I heard him yell, “Daredevils pork for the man over there!”
He pointed a pudgy finger directly at me with a plate of pork on the counter. Everyone looked at me with a confused look but then went back to eating. I blushed in embarrassment. I marched over there ready to ask why in the world he pointed and yelled to me in a lot full of people eating. But when I got to the counter I shut my mouth.
It was a barely steaming slab of pork on a paper plate. The pork was drowning in the sauce and I was a little worried at first until I caught the delicious smell. Despite the look I was attracted to it. My mouth started to water and quickly grabbed it and I said thank you.
“And if you crunch on anything hard it’s the secret spices we put in!”
I nodded and ran back smiling all the way.
He had that smile again. I didn’t even care that time I just started gorging on my food. I realized I didn’t have a fork or a knife so I just picked it up with my hands. The raw blood and juices where mixing together, making an oily red and brown mix on the plate. I can’t describe the taste but I couldn’t stop eating it. I didnt care that whenever I chewed a sound like I was chewing stand happened. It’s probably the spices, I thought.
Before I knew it, it was gone. I came back to my senses and saw the mess I had made. My hands were covered in the disgusting mixture. My shirt wasn’t in the best condition either. Some people were staring at me with a shocked and disgusted look. Others were whispering to each other. Mom’s turned their kids heads away. Some people just left. I looked around and saw that the guy was gone. All eyes were on me now. I quickly got up and speed walked to my car.
I got to the parking lot and my stomach felt queasy. I thought it was probably because I ate so fast so I shook it off. I got in the drivers seat and drove back to my house. The feeling had gone away but only for a short period of time. I got to my drive through, It was night when I got there. I opened the door, took my shoes off, and dragged my feet up the stairs.
A few days passed, I didn’t know what was wrong with me but I ate like a horse and never gained any weight, I just kept losing it. But before the weight-loss I can't stop something and swallowed it back down. I didn't think much of it until later. I also had a bit of a fever: my gut felt bloated like when you’ve had a thanksgiving dinner but three times in a row. Everyday I felt sick and lost more weight.
Then one day, for some reason, I looked like I was finally gaining weight. My abdomen started to swell. I was quite happy and weirded out at the same time. That happiness extinguished faster than a match in a wind storm when I saw my stomach move with a sharp pain. The mass increasingly started to hurt so I poked it and almost threw up. Then I suddenly need to go to the bathroom. I was horrified when I saw two long squirming worms in the toilet bowl. I felt a sharp pain again as more and more came out. It was ivory in color and came in large clumps. I looked back down at my stomach and saw that it was writhing beneath the skin. As I fumbled for my phone I thought my intestines burst. I could barely dial 911 but with shaking hands I managed.
They came as soon as I said, “Help…come quick... I think my intestines burst..." between each sentence I was gasping for air.
I couldn’t answer any questions because I was throwing up. I felt the bile spill into my body. You know when you hold a bunch of earthworms in your hand? Imagine thousands or millions spilling from your intestines, all violently squirming. All the while shitting worms all varying in sizes, It would be A few inches or a foot. I couldn't do anything about it except cry and scream. The edges of my site grew dark as I passed out.
I woke up facing the ceiling of a hospital. I tried to recall what happened but I was still drowsy from the anesthesia.
“It’s a miracle that you’re alive. The paramedics found you in the bathroom passed out,” said a doctor that was next to me.
She was a white woman with brown hair and brown eyes. She was wearing your standard doctor's outfit and was smiling at me. I didn’t notice her until then but I asked what happened to me? Why am I here? How did I even get here?
The doctor chuckled and said, “If I had a dollar for every person that has woken up and said that, I’d be able to retire. Hello, I’m Doctor Snow, head of surgery."
I tried to sit up but felt a sharp pain in my midsection.
“Whoa whoa settle down. You just came back from some major surgery. It took me and my surgical team more than an hour and 30 minutes to get all those parasitic worms out of you. When you go to the hospital the worms have already burst through your intestinal wall and we need to work fast to get them out and fix your small intestine. Don’t make any sudden movements we just patched you up and we don’t want those stitches to reopen.” Said the doctor putting a hand on my forehead and gently putting me back down.
I guess she saw the pure mortified expression I had. Not because I came into the hospital with worms but because the paramedics had to see me on the toilet bowl with worms coming out of my ass.
“Don’t worry you’re going to be fine now. You’ll need a few days in the hospital to recover but after that you’ll be on your way. The only remnants of this ever happening is a scar,” she said. Her voice was sweet and I could tell that she has a sense of humor.
“What kind of worms were they..?” I said. Half of me didn't want to know but the other was curious.
“You had a parasitic worm called Ascaris. Ascaris is a genus of parasitic nematode worms known as the small intestinal roundworms. Which is a type of helminth, a parasitic worm. One species, Ascaris lumbricoides, affects humans and causes the disease ascariasis. Another species, Ascaris suum, typically infects pigs. Their eggs are deposited in feces and soil. Plants with the eggs on them infect any organism that consumes them. A. lumbricoides is the largest intestinal roundworm and is the most common helminth infection of humans worldwide. This is what you had. Infestation can cause morbidity by compromising nutritional status, affecting cognitive processes, inducing tissue reactions such as granuloma to larval stages, and by causing intestinal obstruction, which can be fatal."
This was gross but equally fascinating to me.
"Infection occurs by eating food or drink contaminated with Ascaris eggs from feces. The eggs hatch in the intestines, burrow through the gut wall, and migrate to the lungs via the blood. There they break into the alveoli and pass up the trachea, where they are coughed up and swallowed. The larvae then pass through the stomach for a second time into the intestine, where they become adult worms."
When she was finished I told her that a few days ago I ate pork from a shady food truck in Long Beach. She told me that it was probably under cooked or contaminated with the eggs. Though she didn't know how it got there sense this is usually common in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Unless they were purposely put there. When she said that it may have purposely been put there, a cold sweat ran down my forehead. I started to remember how insane the cook seemed and all the red flags that him and his damn truck put up. I told her everything from start to finish and as I progressed with my story she went pale.
"What kind of sick person would do that?..Ok, I'll contact the authorities for investigation. Just stay here and rest," she said.
I sat there for a long time. The next day I got questioned and an investigation was put into action. They never found him. A week later I was dispatched from the hospital and I went back home. I'm writing this to put a warning out because yesterday I went back to the Long Beach fair and saw a white, beaten down, truck in the same spot as before. The same insane cook was smiling from ear to ear at someone savagely eating on a piece of undercooked pork.
Info credit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascariasis And https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascaris
Ascaris Lumbricodes