Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Happy Birthday Typhoid Mary...

Over on Hark! A Vagrant Kate Beaton is examining Sarah Josephine Baker, who had the wonderful joy of trying to convince "Typhoid" Mary Mallon to stop cooking for people.

Seriously, that woman just would not stop cooking. No matter how often people pointed out that illness and death followed her around and she should, I don't know, wash her hands occasionally and maybe get a job that didn't involve food handling, she still ended up working as a cook somewhere. Maybe she felt it was her calling. Maybe it had more respect than the other domestic positions. Maybe she just liked cooking.

Still, after 20-something cases of typhoid and three deaths, you'd think even she would work it out...

I have a rather strange reflex reaction to the mention of Typhoid Mary - I start washing my hands to the tune of happy birthday.

It's because of this little number here:



It's put out by the same people who's Why don't we do it in our sleeves? is the reason why I cough into my sleeve - which just goes to show their corny little videos work.

And their videos are extremely corny. They actually aim for corny, and they nail it. That Soap in the City thing was a parody of Sex in the City that was so awful even I thought it was ghastly - and I never watched the show.

And yet, they are strangely appealing, for being hilariously terrible. For some reason, I was completely won over by the line: "I just wanted to know why you weren't on my side in the dream?"

So, yeah, whenever I hear about Typhoid Mary I start singing happy birthday when I wash my hands. Most of the time I do it in my head.

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