And I think Todd is on to something. The message for boys, greater than the implication that women are waiting to be swept away by them, is that falling for someone only gets you salmonella. Love hurts, Simon.

Or perhaps it’s an insanely misguided extended metaphor in which love can be seen as some sort of virulent infection, one that can be caught, not so much at first sight, but at least upon initial contact. The emotional travails of love are compared to a kind of permanent physical disfigurement, one in which it’s something much worse than “butterflies” in your stomach. The point of this extended metaphor is obvious: to scare children into monastic lives of emotional detachment, free from the all-too-real ravages of love.

In other news, not having read the book (due to the remarkably poor reception it got in our house), I have to ask: is there a plot point in which Prince Polio is mortally wounded by his archenemy — say, I don’t know, Herman Herpesvirus — and Salmonella exclaims, “Oh no, is the Prince dead?!”, following which there is an extended debate as to whether he was technically ever alive in the first place? Because if not, I’m totally writing that story. Patent pending!