Picture of today: Giardia – the sophisticated parasite

Some of you may still not have read about the current water crisis in Oslo yet, but it affects nearly everyone in the Norwegian capital, including myself. It is not a lack of water (phew!) as much as it is a potentially deadly contamination of water. They’ve found a parasite from outer space called Giardia, and some other funny bacteria, that may cause massive and acute diarrhea, chronic fatigue syndrome and even death if drunk by human beings. It looks like this:

Giardia bug
Alien species, Giardia, performing in a modern ballet

Cute, little critter, eh?
In effect, this means that I must boil the water I a) drink, b) make coffee from and 3) brush my teeth with, for more than 3 minutes prior to the deed wanting to perform. Okay. No big deal so far. Most places in the world aren’t simply lacking clean water they’re lacking water whatsoever. But it still affects my general mood. Why?

There’s absolutely no place in the path of my usual routine you can get a decent cup of coffee these days. They’re either boiling l’eau gazeuse or feeding us with pre-processed crap from the armpits of the Dark (java-scented) Lord. Even at the university today they were selling some First Price abomination. To the same price. This means that your bowels have to seriously pull themselves together in order not to explode in a series of convulsive spasms resulting in squirts of feces running down your thighs, you running out of the room with your hands waving frantically in the air, screaming in panic:
OH MY GOD! Someone put shit in my pants!

.. which kind of brings you back to the state of affairs you wanted to avoid in the first place. But they look good, don’t they? Like skin flakes with tentacles and a suction cup.

Giardia bugs making sweet, sweet love
Promiscuous giardia bugs making sweet, sweet love.
Oh, you like that, don’t you? Yeh dirty dirty ..!

After careful consideration I’ve found these parasites to be an extraterrestrial race wanting to take over mankind, initially brought here by a dog by accident.
It happened before (2005) and that incident too involved my drinking of coffee. Now this might sound strange to you, a little far-fetched perhaps, but it makes perfect sense to me. And I’ve got proof.
If you check out page 87 from Hill’s Atlas of Veterinary Clinical Anatomy you can see that the aliens thrive so much that they have grown smiley faces.
What has this got to do with the city of Oslo, you ask?
I’m glad you asked.
Because I saw this exact dog playing in the yard this morning!!

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