So in China the bellybutton is a very important part of the body. This magical place is a direct “door” into the inner body. I was dating a typical Chinese girl in the spring of 2011 when I found out about the intricacies of this holy of holies. We were sitting on the couch when I had my arm around her while watching a movie when I put my hand over her bellybutton. She jumped and swatted my hand away telling me about the highly delicate part of the body that if touched can cause sickness. Now, this became a game where I would see how close I could get to touching it before she would swat my hand away. I would usually get pretty close and once or twice I had my finger covering the hole. During that once or twice I felt something hard within the sacred realm. Now I have had many years of exploring my own belly button through my younger years of just being curious to the now lint trap that is has become and having to empty it. Needless to say I wanted to find out what was this strange substance that I had touched. Trying to find out was like pulling teeth since I had to fight through squirming and playful slapping. I finally discovered what foreign object had lodged itself in the dark crevice. I had found what could be considered the most disgusting thing to ever find in a partner’s bellybutton, dirt. Now, just dirt in itself I would not consider to be so gross, everyone’s gets a little dirty every once in awhile but this dirt had been collected and aged over 25 years. Things like wine are great when aged but dirt that has never been cleaned because of some old wives tale makes you want to…have someone hold a bag for you. Now here is the story gets a bit stranger. Well I have always enjoyed picking at things, as my mother did, and I wanted to help my, now ex, girlfriend to clean her bellybutton. One day she was taking a nap on my couch when I decided that this was an excellent time for an expedition and possibly minor surgery. Armed with my tweezers and nail clipper and nail file combo. I was very careful to not disturb the patient but started to take a closer look into the dark cavern that was obstructed by a dark object that I was determined to remove. After about two minutes of separating the obstruction from the walls keeping it in place she began to wake up and the extraction became a bit more hurried. I dislodged the dirt and pulled it out and showed it to her. She looked at it and could only talk about how she was surprised that she didn’t feel any pain when I exercised the foreign object from her body. She went on and on about this talking about how I should be a doctor, I guess that game “Operation” really helped to prepare me for days like this. While she was going on about the lack of pain I was thinking about the size of the dirt clump with a diameter a little bit larger than my pinky nail and how anyone could live with something that large in a location that small. She was very worried that she was going to become sick after I pulled it out, but she never did. Even though we are no longer together I hope that she will be thankful for a clean bellybutton, as long as she keeps up on the maintenance. I also asked her friends if they cleaned their bellybuttons and they all said no or only on occasion because they did not want to get sick…