I consider myself a fairly gross person. It’s not hard for me to imagine terrible, gory scenes in great detail. Sometimes I sit around playing the grosser than gross game in my head out of boredom which, if you’re not familiar, involves thinking of the grossest thing you can imagine then topping that. So imagine my surprise when I became both repulsed and obsessed with a horror movie I hadn’t even seen yet. The concept of Human Centipede was described to me in a bar one night and I kept saying, “That’s not a real movie, you’re lying, that cannot be real.” If you don’t already know, Human Centipede is the touching story of a retired surgeon looking to do some pro bono work on three lucky patients he has lured into his underground lair. The problem with free medical care, as I’m sure most European countries can attest, is you run the risk of waking up with your lips sewn to the ass in front of you – a human centipede. It’s a great first date movie. I recommend leaning over and whispering sexy-like, “Which part would you want to be?”
The problem was that my imagination was far worse than what could ever be in a movie. I went through the basic stages upon hearing this concept: shock, denial, then pure horrific obsession. Not only did I imagine myself as the front, the back, the middle – I imagined how one might deal with with waking up in such a scenario. My plan was to bury my nostrils on the buttocks of the person in front of me and hopefully suffocate. Then, grosser than gross, I accidentally started imagining being a centipede with people I know! It’s one thing to rope yourself into hypothetical horror, but now I was taking my friends down with me. I’ve always had this problem. Faced with boredom and a room of new acquaintances I start imagining what they’d look like doing it. It can then be difficult to have a polite conversation with someone who just starred in “Erin’s Anatomy: The Boredom Diaries.” The same was becoming true of the movie. Without meaning to I was visually being sewn to various friends and then it was somewhat awkward trying to talk with them normally.
It’s kind of like the butt thing. I’ll sit in a room and think, look at all these people talking and acting so cool when underneath our clothes we all have butts! How ridiculous is that? How do two scientists have a serious conversation about the cure for AIDS when they both have butts under their pants and no one is addressing it? It seems a strange human denial that we are just sexual animals disguised by designer denim and the ability to speak. Isn’t that what so often happens with online dating? The profile is all favorite books, intellectual interests, and hopes for the future. Really it should read: Lonely, smells good, has butt.
But, I digress. The real problem with this specific kind of mind wandering is the eventual curiosity. You get tired of the thoughts and decide to make it a reality. I’m assuming that’s what happened to the Centipede doctor. One can only dream so long. Let your mind consider boning a friend too many times and curiosity gets the better of you. It’s happened to the best of us. You know that if you were really right for each other, you would have hooked up when you first met. But one Thursday evening boredom and concupiscence get the better of you and you find yourself kissing a friend. This is how I ended up on my couch at 4 PM one Saturday watching Human Centipede alone in hopes of ridding myself of the horrific picture show playing on repeat in my head. It sort of worked. True to form, my imagination had been way grosser than the film. But like hooking up with a friend, the whole thing was kind of awkward. The lesson? Well, all that time spent day dreaming probably could have spent, what, actually talking to someone? Because really, whether your mind manages to make something horrible or sensational, it’s still in your mind and the eventual reality is never going to match up. So, you know, get over the fact that you have a butt and make something happen. (Retired, insect-like surgeons: please disregard.)
Photo via Fluffftail
