Below the belt

There’s a time and a place to catch up with your friends. Standing in line at the local chemists to buy threadworm pills, though, isn’t one of them.

Vicky and her children are midway up the queue of prescription-clutching oldsters when Bad Lindy pushes the door open.

"Blimey. It's the statin set on their day out. Mind if I join you?" she says, barging her way in next to Vicky, a tube of toothpaste in her hand. "What are you doing here, anyway? And what's with the dark glasses."

Vicky mouths something. "What?" says Bad Lindy. "I'll text you," hisses Vicky, tapping away on her phone. "There. Should show up any minute."

Bad Lindy reads the message. "Yuck! Threadworm" she says. "No wonder you didn't want to say it out loud."

By this time, the cholesterol queens are all turning round for a good peer at the parasite-ridden family in their midst. Vicky keeps smiling until she gets to the front of the queue.

“HELLO! HELLO!” says the cheery pharmacist, speaking entirely in block capitals and exclamation marks. “WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?”

“I need a family pack of threadworm tablets,” whispers Vicky.

It's at this point that an elderly woman, just behind, senses that this is a golden opportunity for a no holds barred public forum about public health.

“Threadworm pills?” she calls. “Have you got worms, then?”

The queue falls silent. Vicky's children try to climb into their sunhats so they can curl up quietly and die of mortification. People looked at Vicky, then away again.

“Well………” says Vicky, desperately.

“How did you get them, then? You’re very brown, have you been abroad? I expect you got them there.”

Temporarily satisfied, she relapses into silence until Vicky is about to leave the shop, clutching her pills, when she fires her parting shot:

“Did you get fleas as well, while you were away?”

"You know what, Vicky," says Bad Lindy, as they leave the chemist's. "You really should learn to be a bit more discreet. You don't want everyone knowing about your threadworm."

"Threadworm?," says the postman, who's just passing. "You need to nip into the chemist and get some pills. It's just behind you."

Vicky darts a look of hatred at him and Bad Lindy and rushes off with her children.

"Only trying to help," says the postman.

Bad Lindy lays a consoling hand on his arm. "And I'm sure you're very, very good at it..........." she says.