Yesterday I stumbled upon an interesting article regarding belly buttons.  This in itself is interesting.  I have never really looked, but I can’t imagine that you would find many articles about belly buttons, and even fewer of them would be interesting!

Apparently, scientists in London have recently carried out a study on navel bacteria.  Yes, really!

I can remember, during my third year of high school a male friend of mine discovered that his belly button had a curious, and not altogether pleasant scent to it.  Please do not ask me how he came to find this out, I dread to think.  I have an idea that it had something to do with attempting impossible gymnastic moves and self gratification, but you didn’t hear that from me.

Unfortunately his discovery quickly developed into a craze whereby the male members of the class would stick their own fingers into their belly buttons, and then try to thrust them into the unsuspecting faces of their female classmates.

From discussions with friends, I gather that this kind of pent-up quasi-sexual sad-arse attempt at a mating ritual amongst our male peers was not altogether uncommon.  In my town, a girl rated her popularity calibre and attractiveness by the number of navels she had unwittingly inhaled.

 
Oh to be young again!

Anyway, getting back to the official study – 95 subjects were given a cotton swab to wipe around the inside of their belly button three times.  Startlingly, medical scientists found over 1,400 different bacteria living in the belly buttons of the participants.  Whilst 80% of the bacteria identified were non-harmful the other 20% were unable to be identified.  Stranger still, is that some of the bacteria discovered in the test are usually only found in oceans in Japan.  Uh huh!  Weird!

In light of my upcoming weekend getaway, this information could not have come at a more opportune time for me.  Now instead of just picking away the fluff, and blowing the dust out of Hubbster’s navel, before drinking champagne from it, or using it to hold the dipping chocolate for my strawberries,  I will have to give it a good generous squirt with the Dettol and the Glen10.

And that brings me around to another unsolved mystery regarding belly buttons ~ Why do men’s navel’s act as fluff magnets?  I reckon I could knit a jumper a year if I was to harvest Hubbster’s navel fluff.  Well, that’s if I could knit, of course.

Am I the only one whose partner’s naval cavity gathers and stores fibres and fluff?  And why is it always blue?