Dirt For Dinner: Living With The Weird Condition Called Pica

It's generally an ER situation when your organs start shrieking, so that's where she went. "It was embarrassing, but when they asked me what I had eaten recently, I said a sponge, and they looked dumbfounded," she remembers. "I had to get a stomach pump and get some fluids in me. The problem was that the sponges soaked up some of the acid in my stomach and caused a blockage, because even though I chewed, each piece was too big, and they expanded inside."

She admits to still eating sponges, but only in "small amounts."

Evan is dealing with some more lasting damage. His favorite snack is dirt, and as a result, "my teeth are terrible. Eating dirt for over 20 years weather-stripped the enamel off some of them. I've eaten less dirt over time, but it still happened."

If you think your dentist is judgmental, try going in with literal dirt clogging your gum line.

They can't simply stop. Pica is a form of addiction, and both Deborah and Evan compared it to the cravings one might feel due to cigarette withdrawal. The problem is that there's not exactly gum or a patch filled with dirt or sponge. There's aversion therapy, which involves pairing whatever the patient likes to eat with a blast of ammonia to the face, but that's obviously no one's idea of a good time. Deborah says that all it taught her was how to avoid getting caught.

Evan, on the other hand, seemed to always like dirt, but there were environmental factors that encouraged him. You see, he moved around a lot when he was young, and every state has its own signature dirt flavor. "Georgia had this fine ground soil that was chewy," he remembers. "Oklahoma has red soil that's crunchy. Indiana had dirt that could be easily compacted and was easy to swallow." He was like a tiny wine-taster, sampling blends from around the country. His dirt habit then led to metal: "My brother had a BB gun, and when I had dirt, sometimes there would be a small BB round in there. I really liked the taste of copper, and I was soon sneaking into my brother's room and taking some of the BBs out of his rifle to taste and eat."

Even at that age, he had a vague sense that what he was doing wasn't normal, so he kept a small bag of dirt tucked away in his room that he'd eat "like trail mix." Metal, on the other hand, was a little harder to come by: "I was a volunteer basketball ref, and I went through a few whistles. I would chew on it constantly during games, and after several games, the part where you blow into it was almost shut because I bent it that much. It was like gum. I still eat BB rounds, because I've found out they're the safest. There's nothing that can cut you, and it's hard for them to get stuck in you."

Psh. Tell that to everybody's little brother who still has a BB round stuck in their elbow.

But the shaming didn't work. "After that, I learned to eat it in private, or when I could get away with it," Deborah says. At 28, she's still finding ways to hide it: "I have a cubicle at work, and I can't let anyone see the Starbucks cup I have, because I'll always have part of the straw bitten off," she says. "The notepad in my desk also has thumb-sized ripped-out sections in it when I feel like some paper. I can't leave them in plain sight."

Since Evan's craving is literally the earth, he's got to be especially careful in public. "My best friend knows about my pica," he explains, although he doesn't eat dirt around him as a courtesy. "He suggested using an empty chewing tobacco tin to carry dirt, because here, chewing tobacco is acceptable in public, and eating a pinch of dirt uses almost the same motions as putting tobacco in your mouth ... I have bags of dirt in my Lazy Susan, and I keep other things I like to eat out of sight. It would be hard to explain why I have a jar of BBs but no BB gun."

That seems like an easy problem to fix, but we're not here to tell anyone how to live their life.

"You develop tastes on what you like," Deborah continued. "Printer paper, newspaper, and notebook paper are as different as Pepsi, Sprite, and Crush. Technically they're all soda, but aren't the same flavor. The consistency, type of tree used, whether it's recycled, and if there is ink on it are a few things that change the taste." Oh, but you only get the "Hammermill shits" once before you swear off the wrong white stuff forever.

"It can't be too jagged, but I ate staples for a while," Evan says. "And I've had balled-up copper wire with the ends tucked into the middle. It's good, but I'm not taking any chances. When I eat pencil graphite, I'll usually scribble it a little so the edges are blunt. I've eaten mechanical pencil refill packs before, and a few times it stabbed my gums or the roof of my mouth." Deborah plays it a bit safer. "It can't be too sharp," she says. "I've reminded myself I don't want my intestines punctured or to face a doctor saying they found a screwdriver handle in my small intestine."

Possibly the only time you want the doctor to assume you were experimenting sexually.

Eating all these weird, colorful, and mostly non-biodegradable objects inevitably leads to a weird ... product. "I'm embarrassed to say this, but I've looked down at my poop before flushing, and occasionally you can see bright colors in it," Deborah says. "It's not going to look like a party favor, but if you've ever eaten corn and look down before you flush, it's poking out like that." Evan admitted that when he poops, sometimes he'll "hear a few clinks," but come on -- anybody who's eaten their spare change rather than risk being shaken down by a bell-ringing store Santa knows that feeling.