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Rating: From the moment this virtual place was rebranded as an opportunity for the most advanced self-promotion, a chance to showcase skills that span every field of knowledge, I decided to adapt.
With the same courage as someone releasing a foul flatulence in a Rinascente overwhelmed by pre-Christmas frenzy (taking advantage of the anonymity that the crowd provides), I set about reviewing this ancient friend of gastric wisdom.
After all, my grade 30 in the zoology exam and being much cooler than Alberto Angela give full authority to the noble attempt to inaugurate the de-scientific section.
Ladies and gentlemen … I present to you Taenia Solium, better known as the "Tapeworm".
An hallucinatory journey that will make the life cycle of this friendly Xenomorph seem like a bland substitute.
Where do we start? But from the end, obviously from the butthole.
From the moment when, after giving way to physiological peristalsis, you will be startled looking in the bowl.
And this time not out of satisfaction for having produced a fecal canoe complete with little men rowing and waving at you, no gentlemen … you'll be surprised by the proglottids peeking between the still crackling turns.
Oh yes, you have been chosen as the preferred enteron by one of the millions of eggs that this specimen belonging to the Phylum of flatworms (flatworm, a sort of digestive apparatus equipped with male and female gonads over which a steamroller has passed) is capable of depositing, and only now do you realize that attending the raw pork festival was not a great idea.
"Excuse me, Alfredo, but my chop is still grunting … isn't it problematic for it to be so undercooked?"
"Nahhhh … don't talk nonsense, I'm a BBQ expert, eat and stop being a pain."
So, proglottids, segments of the adult form of the parasite packed with eggs more than a Tokyo metro car at rush hour, biological Trojan horses designed to breach the intermediate host.
250,000 little eggs for each of the 4 terminal segments, in defiance of the birth crisis.
Now that you're infested, you'll complain of some unpleasant symptoms: weight loss, abdominal pains, and diarrhea.
And it's this last event that will increase the likelihood of discharging wherever it happens, perhaps in the open countryside, where cows, goats waving goodbye, and pigs won’t hesitate to feast on such soft delicacy.
Here… should it happen, avoid cleaning yourself with a leaf, you might catch Strongyloides Stercoralis, but that's another story.
In the pleasant warmth of porcine entrails, the eggs will hatch, becoming the first larval form (oncospheres … no, they have nothing to do with Dragon Ball), which, cradled by the bloodstream, will migrate and encyst in the muscles of the unsuspecting mammal.
There they will patiently wait (taking the form of a cysticercus, the secondary larval stage) for the pig to die of old age in the slaughterhouse and end up in the skilled hands of the next grill master.
Once ingested, the cysticercus will evert, anchor itself to the human intestinal wall with its scolex worse than an Italian parliamentarian to his chair and will begin to grow, absorbing pre-digested nutrients from the final host by osmosis, thus transforming into the adult form
A streamer that can strobilate segments up to 5 meters long, which assimilates, produces toxins to prevent other parasites from colonizing the same small intestine (that’s why it's "solitary") and reproduces by protandric hermaphroditism. That is, the male part matures before the female one, and the terminal segments host the eggs … in short, as if over the course of your existence you are first Rocco Siffredi, then Solange, and finally Belen.
Eat.
Reproduce.
The dream of every average Italian.
Once the gravid segments are expelled, the ride begins again …. Wuuuuuuuuhhhhh.
The cycle can derail in rare cases.
In particular, in the unfortunate event that you are coprophagous (or if Alfredo handled your chop after wiping his ass with his bare hands), it might happen that you ingest the eggs directly.
The cysticerci would migrate directly to the brain, encysting there, waiting for a cannibal to eat you to develop into the adult form.
I realize that the chances for the poor tapeworm to survive would hang by the slender thread of finding a cannibal who eats a coprophagous … even flatworms have their problems.
The neurocysticercosis contracted this way would manifest with serious neurological problems, for example, deliberately watching Domenica 5 with Barbara D’Urso or listening to an entire CD of Negramaro, reading a book by Fabio Volo, laughing at Brignano's jokes.
I end my learned dissertation with a treat that also serves as a friendly proposal for your Christmas Eve dinner, to be enacted before all your relatives at full ranks.
There are tales that the adult form can climb up the digestive tract, drawn by the edible vapors of a boiling herbal tea with high sugar concentrations.
On the evening of December 24, after having preemptively inoculated the parasite, set a pot of water and honey on the stove, once it reaches boiling point place it in the center of the table and position yourself above it, inhaling the vapors with confidence.
All you have to do is enjoy the expression of astonishment of the guests while the worm protrudes from your oral cavity, in the intimate knowledge that you will have made your convivial gathering unforgettable.
In this story, don't you all also find an admirable metaphor for the cyclicality, a zoological eternal return of Nietzschean flavor, referring to the inevitability of destiny suggested by Mother Nature?
… no, huh.
And now away, everyone to check our poos!
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