Speaking with a friend the other day, I was reminded that I have a habit of ruining conversations by bringing up or discussing topics that render mere mortals grabbing for the barf bag.  Somewhere in Etiquette School, I’m sure young ladies are taught to not discuss the “prizes” the cat left on the sofa, but I didn’t attend Etiquette School.

I grew up on a farm and was very familiar with the bodily functions of animals.  Later on in life, I worked at a veterinary clinic and lunches were filled with conversations that vacillated between the currently playing soap opera and surgery, parasites – internal or external, or bodily fluids of some variety that would make most squeamish people cringe in terror and disgust.

Topics of conversation that were up for discussion at home covered the gamut of the mundane day-to-day “how was work” variety to “do you remember when we first got Prince and dewormed him and he had ALL those Bot Fly larvae that I swear were lining his stall wall to wall among the shit?”  These topics don’t bother me.  Bodily functions and fluids are fair game.  Dinner with my Mom’s side of the family always involves talk about farting or diarrhea in some capacity – it’s what we all do.

Conversations with me always seem to segue from one topic to another rather quickly, and often times end or have an uncomfortable pause, when we get to the part where I interject something along the lines of finding six engorged ticks on the dog one day or that time I saw the Cuterebra larvae in the neck of a cat.

I have caused pause in conversation where somehow things segued to where bringing up stepping in cat puke had recently happened.  One friends gag reflex is so primed that she starts to dry heave the moment she hears certain words.  I try to not talk about things I know will make her vomit.

So, on the subject of what I will and won’t talk about… pretty much anything is fair game!