Once upon a time, there was this shoemaker who lived in a small hut. One day a volcano erupted and sent a stream of hot lava roaring through the hut.
The lava was so hot, it would have melted the skin off the shoemaker's body, which would then have coagulated into piles of unidentifiable goo ...
except the shoemaker was on vacation in Germany at the time. There he got bitten by a plague-infested rat, and so his skin broke out in all sorts of multihued boils.
The boils were very itchy, and when the shoemaker scratched them, they would burst open and send streams of pus shooting forth.
The shoemaker soon died, and his body was placed on a transatlantic steamship. He was eventually buried in a landfill near Hoboken, New Jersey.
(This story pleases my sister so much, she always starts slamming her tongue in the door when I read it.)
