Making whoopee

It was bound to happen.
Considering my ambition to get in the water if I’m near a get-in-able body of water that, in particular, I’ve never been in before -- the Indian Ocean, St. Maarten’s Great Bay, the Sarapiquí River in Costa Rica, and several beaches in Mexico (where God-knows-what you can catch) come to mind, along with more recently the Tuolumne River and Pinecrest Lake -- my 'toe in the water' dogma has finally caught up with me, fostering a little souvenir I never intended to take home: a colony of single-celled parasitic squatters whose common goal is to ‘party hardy’ in my small intestines, while creating copious amounts of gas.
Yes, I am a walking-talking whoopee cushion.
Giardia is a not-so-uncommon protozoa found in rural, wilderness and other so-so water supplies that, once ingested (when, for instance, you rip down a water slide and half a gallon of Tuolumne River shoots up your nose) provokes a veritable orgy of flagellates and flatulence. The ‘host’ (why do I not feel ‘hospitable’?) exhibits a feeling of general malaise coupled with a low-grade fever and nausea. I actually feel okay as long as I don’t eat! Then my stomach gurgles and rumbles like a distant thunder storm … even the dog doesn’t want to sleep with me!
Fortunately it’s stunted my appetite (who needs colonics when you can have a parasite?) and added to my cachet as a verified world adventurer. Tally ho!