phagocytosis

Does anyone else remember what phagocytosis is? It's one of those words that stuck out to me when I was in Biology in 9th grade. I think the word stuck out to a lot of 15 year old boys when we heard that the teacher say "phag" in class. (like: "did you guys hear that? did he just say fag? haha, chuckle, chuckle, whisper, whisper). I can vividly remember saying "Holy Phagocytosis" at one point. Of course, we also used the term to bring the word "fag" to a higher level. Such as: "That guy is so gay, yeah, he's like a phagocytosis." Oh, to be 15 again....

When I was in the 12th grade I used the term to identify the peculiar relationship between older gay dudes and younger gay dudes. At my high school, Orange County High School of the Arts, there were quite a few homosexual lads. They usually came out of the closet around 9th or 10th grade due to an "experience" with an upper classmen (or an older gay dude). The older gay dudes, in essence, were displaying an act of relational phagocytosis, where they would prey upon the younger, curious and confused, almost gay dudes. That always bummed me out: I see this young kid who just broke up with his girlfriend because he needed to "find" himself, which led to experimentation (more confusion), and ultimately chooses a trajectory for the rest of his life at the age of 15 or 16 (and sometimes way younger than that). Craziness.

All that to say: I saw this stain on the ground today (above) as I was getting into my car and it reminded me of phagocytosis. Dictionary.com says: the ingestion of a smaller cell or cell fragment, a microorganism, or foreign particles by means of the local infolding of a cell's membrane and the protrusion of its cytoplasm around the fold until the material has been surrounded and engulfed by closure of the membrane and formation of a vacuole: characteristic of amebas and some types of white blood cells.

uh-huh.

Other possible applications for this word could be: Cultural phagocytosis, democratic phagocytosis, religious phagocytosis, western phagocytosis, social group phagocytosis, sexual phagocytosis, fast food phagocytosis, artistic phagocytosis, corporate phagocytosis......etc.....etc......

Apply the implications of these applications; and see what happens!