Why I Might Get Syphilis For My Birthday

(Short answer: Because I’m kinda asking for it.)

No, this is not the really nasty story you might be expecting. Then again, if you know me at all, maybe it is.

See, I have this funny little fascination with the disease. Not in a “Man, I wish I had that because maybe I could get a little time off of work” kind of way, but more a “Holy balls, there are so many ways to get that and have you SEEN the buses driving around town that say ‘Syphilis is BACK’? Because seriously, that shit scares me, and I don’t think I’ll ever have sex again” kind of way. But anyway.

Awhile back, my sister found this website. For those of you too lazy to follow the link, it’s a store that sells stuffed “animals” in the shape of germs like the cold, flu, athlete’s foot, etc. So she sends it out in this huge mass email about how cool it would be to give your loved one diseases, when her fiancée responds, “Sure, because nothing says love like the black death.” And me, having gone directly to the list of STDs they have there, (seriously, there’s an STD section! So awesome!) I have to then reply all like a total asshole and say, “Or SYPHILIS, jackass, how did you manage to miss that one?” After sending it, congratulating myself on my brilliance at showing Timmy that I’m funnier than he is, I see that the list of people I just sent that message to includes my dad. And I am immediately mortified. My dad is awesome and all, but as far as he knows, I don’t know words like “STD” or “gonorrhea”. But everyone else is apparently dying laughing. (See? I AM funny.)

But at that same point, I realize that Timmy’s birthday is coming up, and like he said, nothing says love like a communicable disease. So I go ahead and order it right up, and a few days of excitement later, (I’m going to have syphilis any day now!) syphilis shows up in the mail all pink and cute and fuzzy. I send it out to Colorado, where he has been informed that he is not allowed to open his gift from me until my sister is present. (He sent me an email telling me that, so I immediately had to inform my sister that, “Tim has syphilis and he doesn’t even know it! This is how diseases get spread, dammit!”) Eventually, he heads over to her house with the present in tow because he’s so curious about what is so funny about this envelope.

The next day, he went to work and told his coworkers that he got syphilis from his girlfriend’s little sister while she watched.
Seriously, quite possibly the best $6 I have ever spent.