The Tuth about Cooties

Freddy Finkerboot’s older brother had warned him about Cooties.
“When girls turn about ten or so they start producing cooties. They’re like termites, but they eat boys, not wood. Get too close to a girl and wham! The cooties will jump onto you and it’s over.”

Those words echoed in Freddy’s mind as he walked into his classroom. Somehow things seemed less care free this year… something was … “Hi Freddy! Good to see you again!” said Samantha. Freddy let out a scream.

“Just stay back! I know all about you. You won’t get me.” Freddy decided the cooties would probably attack through his mouth so he covered it. “Uhm noph gwing thoo ghet coodephs!” he yelled. Samantha rolled her eyes and walked over to talk to Wally.

Didn’t Wally know about cooties? Hadn’t anyone told him? Freddy had to think fast to save him. He picked up a bottle of glue from a desk and threw it toward the infested cootie girl. Whack! That would show cooties that they couldn’t mess with boys!

Apparently principals didn’t understand about cooties. “They’re everywhere, and if we get to close then ba-zing! We’re gonners!” explained Freddy.

Principal Lottahooey sighed. “Freddy, I think you should spend an hour in the Library and do a little research on Cooties.” Freddy thought that would be a good idea. The library seemed like a place cooties would try and avoid.

Ms. Notalottafun, the librarian, was sitting behind her desk looking unhappy. Freddy said, ‘Do you know where I can find a book on cooties?” Ms. Notalottafun scowled at Freddy. “Cooties? Cooties aren’t real. You kids should be worried about hepatitis A, salmonella, e coli and diseases like that!”

“Hepawhat? What are those things you’re talking about?” Freddy asked. Ms. Notalottafun leaned back in your chair. She said, “Freddy, you’re old enough to know that cooties aren’t real. Let me give you some grown up books to look at.”

Some of the books were hard to understand but Freddy did the best he could. Before he left the library, he had the librarian make some copies of a few pages from the books. Freddy had a plan.

During lunch Freddy walked over to Samantha. “I’m really sorry I hit you in the head with glue. My brother told me that girls had cooties and that’s why I acted so strange,” he said.

Samantha nodded her head and said, “Well, it wasn’t very nice. But I accept your apology. Cooties aren’t real, you know.”

“Now I know,” said Freddy.

Freddy found his brother in the cafeteria. “Flibbert, thanks for warning me about cooties.”

“Um yeah, sure man. No problem.” Flibbert said.

Freddy pulled some papers out of his backpack. He said, “I did some research on cooties and found some other stuff out too. Freddy put the papers down on the table by Flibbert. “You need to watch out for salmonella and e coli in your food because, you know, you get it from the cafeteria. These are worse than cooties. And you shouldn’t drink from the water fountain because you can get hepatitis A from it. That’s worse than cooties too. And here’s a list of things you can actually get from girls.”

Flibbert looked through the papers Freddy had brought. He gagged slightly.

Flibbert didn’t eat much lunch that day and wondered if drinking from the toilet was safer than the water fountain. Freddy enjoyed the lunch he’d brought from home and didn’t give cooties a second thought all day.

The Truth about Cooties was originally written August 20th, 2004. I made slight editorial revisions for this posting.