I've told this story before, but it seems apt.
My nan...
Years ago, I guess I was about 12, I went to visit my Nan for dinner, but for some reason I was running late, so by the time I let myself in, she was already eating, and, honestly, this plate of meat she was eating was huge, absolutely huge, and my Nan was only a skinny old thing. I actually commented on the size of her meal.

‘I know, but by the time I got in, I was so hungry I felt like I could eat a horse’ she said.

And to be fair, judging by the size of the plate she had, I almost believe that she actually was.

It seemed kind of odd though, because she’d been shopping with my Mum that afternoon and my mum had taken her to lunch at some chain tacky steakhouse thing, Bernies Grill or whatever and had come home moaning that my Nan had had the largest, most expensive steak on the menu. She said something like ‘I don’t know how she did it, but I may as well have just bought her the whole cow’.

Although thinking back, she always did have a voracious appetite, I remember when I was younger we’d been to a Jamaican market somewhere around Brent Cross or somewhere and she’d gone to a food stall and ordered a massive goat curry. At the time I found the idea of goat curry repulsive, but she scoffed it all down in seconds, literally just opened her throat and it was gone.

Still, I shouldn’t have been surprised that she ate the curry given that she lived near a Korean restaurant that was widely rumoured to sell dog meat if you had the right connections, and apparently my Nan did, or at least claimed she did, cos she was always bragging about eating it.

What with that and her willingness to eat take away from the cheapest Chinese on the street, I guess there was nothing that phased her. You know the type of take away I mean, where everyone believes that the serve cat instead of chicken.

What’s absurd is that she also had a taste for the finer things. If someone else was paying she loved nothing better than a stuffed pheasant or some other game bird. She could easily eat a whole one.

My favourite story though, was when she was on holiday somewhere exotic and came back saying she’d eaten tarantula. Christ, my stomach churned at the thought of eating a spider.

Shit, sorry, I am waffling, the point is, despite her food extravagances, she was as tight as a gnats proverbial, she refused to spend even the slightest amount of money on basic hygiene products for example, so her house was this filthy fly ridden dump of a place. Really disgusting, always things buzzing around your head, had to keep swatting them away from your mouth and stuff, it was grim.

When she died after, basically, eating herself to death, it was discovered that she had a tapeworm, hence her appetite.

And how had she contracted that tapeworm?

She’d swallowed a fly.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Tue 19 Apr 2011, 21:43, 12 replies)

did the fly
... or the worm .... wriggle inside her, perhaps?
(El Fandango carved a big EF onto his nemesis' doublet on .., Tue 19 Apr 2011, 22:02, closed)

is that why she
Swallowed the spider?
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 19 Apr 2011, 22:25, closed)

*claps*
You had me right until the end. Bravo.
( R.Soul hmmm, Tue 19 Apr 2011, 23:32, closed)

well played

( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 19 Apr 2011, 23:47, closed)

I've never understood
the notion that cheap Chinese restaurants sell cat instead of chicken. Surely, cat is more expensive, is it not? So it should really be the high end Chinese restaurants you need worry about giving you cats.
( Ithyphallophobia, Wed 20 Apr 2011, 0:17, closed)

Ahhhh...
...hook, line and ruddy sinker...right up to the last ruddy word...

sfx: applause
(Markygee Surname: "Balls". First name: "Lick-mah", Wed 20 Apr 2011, 2:07, closed)

Oh for....
*applause*
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Wed 20 Apr 2011, 9:55, closed)

Genius.

(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Wed 20 Apr 2011, 11:27, closed)

Bastard!
*click*
( speedyballbangpots, Wed 20 Apr 2011, 14:15, closed)

Well now
It's bloody obvious.
(Brambly Slag is strangely attracted to Steve Buscemi, Wed 20 Apr 2011, 17:22, closed)

Got me
with this one. Excellent.
(ladydyani, Wed 20 Apr 2011, 18:45, closed)

Very very impressive, SIr
Have a click
( His Popiness the Hole Invaded Poland on, Wed 20 Apr 2011, 22:37, closed)