Bungarendeen

When warning the children not to eat potato salad that had been sitting on the counter for a week, or the need to clean and dress a cut, generally instructing them in infection avoidance instead of going into the specifics Bud would say, for example, “Don’t eat that. You’ll get bungarendeen.”  He was a nurse, after all, and didn’t know better.

My daughter was in high school; her teacher was discussing various dread bacteria.  Never hearing the one she’d been waiting for, she raised her hand.  “What about bungarendeen?”

She was rewarded was generalized hysteria.  When the teacher quit laughing, she said.  “You must be John’s sister.  He asked that same question three years ago.”