Te Radar: Worming my way into an over-supply poser

For my lover's birthday, I had myself wormed. Oddly, I have yet to meet anyone else who sees this act as the grand romantic gesture I initially thought it to be.

This has surprised and disappointed me.

I had been under the impression that selflessly consuming parasite-icide was a generous and thoughtful gift.

After all, I would no longer wake her in the night with my incessant scratching and shrill involuntary keening noises.

I could only assume that my malady was indeed some form of parasitic intestinal worm, as my medical research into the problem extended only as far as reading a list of the symptoms on the packet of pills I subsequently purchased.

I couldn't be entirely sure I had all of the symptoms as I had neither a mirror nor the willingness to engage anyone at the chemists for an independent verification of the visual indicators.

But my selfless act has resulted in something of a quandary.

As none of my fellow cohabitants believe they are similarly afflicted, I am left with several spare worming tablets rapidly approaching their use-by date.

Initially, in the spirit of Christmas, I thought of taking the tablets to a food bank to distribute to a needy family.

But this beneficence might be misconstrued as paternalistic philanthropy.

We have seen this in the recent furore over the Aborigines in some squalid Australian locale being told that if they wash their children's faces they will be given a petrol pump or two.

If only our Nanny State cared so deeply here. Not once in all of my many years of malingering, courtesy of the state's largesse, was I ever asked whether I might be afflicted with a parasitic complaint. Indeed, I think they simply viewed me as a parasite.

I have long advocated that we in the developed world are too hygienic, and have been conducting clinical research into this by refusing to wash my hands after going to the toilet.

If anything, I believe that we should wash our hands before going to the toilet.

I attribute my ability to maintain a constant and satisfactory level of mediocre well-being to these heretical hygiene habits.

So, with my pocket still full of anti-parasite pills, I suspect my only option is to prowl the peripheries of the pro-speedway protest that will wind its way through my terrorised suburb this Saturday, and offer the tablets to any skinny-jowled whelps of the west that pass by.

But it seems I would also have to offer the spawn of the well-heeled anti-speedway fraternity a dose of worms, as a recent medical study shows that too few worms are as prejudicial to good health as too many.

It just goes to prove that when it comes to infestations of parasites you can never be too careful.

Just ask TVNZ.