Juvenile Gonorrhea.

Thrown off by the title, eh?
Allow me to elaborate on the time I thought I caught a case:

I was probably 7 or 8 and I had the flu. My Mom dropped me off at my Grandma's and was off to work. My Grandma put me in the "sick" room upstairs with the TV and all the VHS tapes I could dream of! Yes, that's right...I said VHS. For all you youngins, that's what came before DVD and TiVO.

Well, A.D.D. kicked in after a few hours and I started looking through the books on the bookshelves knowing damn well I wouldn't understand a one of 'em. They were all college text books of the medical and science variety. Lord knows what business a runt like me had looking through the lot...

I found one entitled, "Reproductive Health".
My Grandma still has that almost 20 years later, by the way.
I started flipping through it, not really knowing what it was.
I was perusing through a section when I happened upon 3 letters:
"STD".

I thought it meant "something terribly dreadful". No, I wasn't a weird child or anything...
So I started trying to read as much as I could minus all the insane medical jargon incomprehensible to my innocent mind.

I remember very distinctly my Grandma reading me the label on the Pepto-Bismol the previous day when my Grandpa had an upset stomach, so I knew what some of the words were.

"Nausea". Check. I had that.
"Vomiting". Check. DEFINITELY had that.
"Uterin Cramps". Check. I thought that meant stomach aches.
"Fever". DOUBLE check. That's how I got to stay home!

Before long, I realized that my Mom and Grandma were wrong in my diagnosis.
I did not, in fact, have the flu.
I had something much worse.
Something that I thought was going to kill me.
Yeah, I didn't even bother reading down to the end.
Hypochondria is amazing like that.
But according to my medical evaluation of experienced symptoms, I had "Guh-nor-hey-uh".

I ran down the stairs to tell my Grandma.
She looked at me like I was speaking Mandarin.
I ran back to the room to grab my new buddy in disease diagnosis and hurried to show her.
I pointed to the line and started crying.
I didn't want "Guh-nor-hey-uh"!
Upon reading up on my symptoms and sickness, my Grandma started laughing.
I know, that insensitive bitch.
I was flabbergasted.
Here I was assuming I was dying from some disease I couldn't even pronounce, and she was laughing like I'd laid down some new comedic act.

Many minutes and tears later, hers of laughter, mine of sorrow, she wiped both of our eyes and told me to call my mother and tell her exactly what I'd told my Grandma.
My Grandma, that doll, even dialed the number for me.

"This is Mandy".
"Mommy, I have guhnorheyuh and Noni keeps laughing at me that I'm dying!" I started crying again. I could hear my Mom stiffle her laughter.
"Honey..." she was trying to soothe me. No such luck.
"You hate me and want me to die, too. Just like Noni!" I threw the phone down and ran upstairs to the room and hid under the covers.
My Grandma appeared a few minutes later with some chicken noodle soup and explained to me that there was no way possible on earth that I had "guh-nor-hey-uh".
She promised and swore on My Little Pony that I was suffering from a mild bout of the flu.
Nothing else.
That was enough for me.

My Mom later explained to me what Gonorrhea really was.
I didn't have a freakin' clue until 8th grade health class.
Then it all suddenly made sense.

Round of applause, people.
I never had "The Clap".