What's grosser than gross?

In the overall scale of kid grossness, I suppose snot is at the bottom, or lowest gross factor, and botfly would be at the top, or so revolting that it's better just to toss out the kid than to deal with the botfly.  Not that my kids ever have had botfly, but I've got YouTube, and I'd sooner get rid of my kid than hold a steak to his head to lure out maggots.
That being said, ringworm has to fall somewhere in the top half of the grossness scale.  Thankfully, it's not actually a worm, because worm is dangerously close to maggot of botfly.  But, it IS a nasty, flaky inflamed, scaly relative of jock itch, athlete's foot and fingernail fungus.  And by fingernail fungus, I mean those yellow, crumbly nails that you always see at Disney World on people who haven't worn flip flops in a decade, and decide to trot out their beauties just in case Prince Charming wants to slide a glass slipper on  their calloused, rotten toe-nailed, bunion-having piggies.
S has recently contracted ringworm. 

Did it come from the community swimming pool?  The cat?  School?  Digging in fungus-infested dirt and mud?  Who knows?  Who cares?  It's not like I can undo grossness.

We went to the doctor for it yesterday, and apparently, ringworm of the scalp is the hardest to get rid of.  Naturally.  He has to take an antifungal drug for a whole month.  And use stinky anti-dandruff shampoo.  And this formerly-for-horses menthol liniment I researched.  He smells like a throat lozenge.  For horses.

The kicker, of course, is that upon further examination, the not-quite botfly grossness has been transmitted to me.  MOI.  Yes.  I have contracted boy cooties.  Everything we knew in grade school was correct.  Boys do have them.  They are contagious.  And they require yucky medicine to get rid of.  Children are like the bottomless pit of disgusting. 

They don't even need gory Halloween costumes.  They can just be themselves--green boogers, scaly patches of festering skin, scabs, stink, marginally brushed yellow teeth, pirate breath, bruises, black fingernails, pink eye, lice, sweat--these monsters have it all.  Stephen King has yet to invent anything more frightening and repulsive than a little boy.

When the boys get out of the tub, there is a ring around it.  Not of hard water stain, mind you, of DIRT.  There is grit left in the bottom of the tub when all the water is drained.  I keep a spray bottle of bleach just to spritz into the tub every night after bath time.  What the hell?  Where is all that dirt stored?   And they don't even notice!!  It's like they're feral little animals and have no idea of the cloud of stench hovering above them all the time.

Ringworm, people.  My kid has ringworm.  And now, so do I.  Was my kid wandering across the village barefoot to bring water to our hut?  No.  Was he wading through flood waters to rescue his livestock so he wouldn't starve?  No.  Was he laboring in rice paddies to feed his family?  No.  Was he chained to a child labor gang working in dank mines?  NO! 

Me!?!  Of psychotic daily laundry rates.  Of boiling sheets weekly.  Of bleaching toilets daily.  Of intense bodily scrubbing and exfoliation.  Of disinfecting, deodorizing, and decontaminating.  Of bleach consumption that only rivals a dry cleaners'. Me.  Skin fungus.  Just this side of botfly.

I'm seriously considering cutting off my infected finger.