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What gross illness has your child brought home from nursery this week?

ARE you feeling like shit again and wondering what your toddler has infected you with this week? Probably one of these vile ailments.

Something pukey

If your child actually eats their supper without a fuss for once, chances are that’s the night they’re going to be struck down with a sick bug. Is anything worse than being woken at 3am to find they’ve vommed all over their hair, pyjamas and bedsheets… and now your hair, pyjamas, and bedsheets? Yes – the certain knowledge that you’ve caught the bug yourself. 

Something snotty

Wiping your little one’s nose feels like wrestling a carcass from the mouth of a T-Rex at the best of times. When the snot starts running like the bath you won’t manage to get them to sit in tonight, you may as well just give up. Resign yourself to wearing smears of your child’s snot on the shoulders of all your clothes for the next two to three weeks. 

Something fungal

Small children are as filthy and hygiene-averse as your average farmyard animal so don’t be surprised when you spot yet another unexplained rash on their feet, scalp, toenails or basically bloody anywhere. Smear it in vaseline and hope for the best, but good luck keeping the word ‘fungal’ from putting you off your food for the rest of your day. And don’t forget to wash your hands, or you may soon be suffering from knob rot or similar yourself. 

Nits

If you have a mice or bedbug infestation, you get to call a professional exterminator. Yet when your child comes home with nits, you’re expected to do all the hard work yourself: slaughter them, dispose of the bodies, and check for unhatched eggs. And whether or not you actually catch them makes little difference; the thought that lice are busily exploring your scalp will be enough to keep you scratching all day and night.

Nothing at all

The most disconcerting situation of all is when your child comes home with no apparent illness at all. Given they’ve only been healthy for a couple of days in all the years since they started nursery, you’ll go into a tailspin, worrying about how to deal with this alarming catalogue of non-symptoms. And, crucially, how are you going to explain the fact that they’re a moany little shit now you don’t have any illnesses to blame it on?

Woman's friends fail to keep promise to kill her boyfriend with a shovel if he cheated

A WOMAN is outraged that her friends did not beat her cheating boyfriend to death with a shovel, despite having clearly promised to do so. 

Charlotte Phelps’ friends once drunkenly informed Nathan Muir that they would kill him if he was unfaithful, but are reluctant to do so now that fatal retribution is due. 

Phelps said: “We were all in the pub and they were slurring and telling Nathan they love me and if he did the dirty on me, they’d beat him to death with a shovel. Now he’s shagged half the street and my sister, but I fail to see his skull being caved in.

“I keep telling them that, in the eyes of the law, they’ve entered into a binding verbal agreement. I could approach a lawyer to compel them, but I’ve got a feeling it might be a bit self-defeating in any future murder trial.

“I don’t know what their problem is – murdering a man with a shovel is very convenient. In one object you have both the implement for beating him to death and for immediately burying him. It’s the Swiss army knife of homicide implements. Only much bigger and better suited to killing Nathan. 

“But my untrustworthy ‘friends’ are just spouting platitudes like ‘You’ll easily meet someone much better than that scumbag’. That’s the sensible way to look at it, but how is it helping put Nathan in a shallow grave?”

Friend Francesca Johnson said: “Yes, we did promise Charlotte we’d beat Nathan to death with a shovel, but she promised him she wouldn’t put on 20 pounds and stick a tracking app on his phone, so it’s even really.”

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