Guest writer

A remedy for that

Beware wives playing doctor

It’s that time of year again. It’s cold and flu season which, according to my calendar, always falls between football season and baseball season. It’s when we avoid each other like the plague.

I have always loved that cliché. It makes me think of folks in the Dark Ages staying at home behind barricaded doors, huddled around a dark fireplace, drinking dark gruel because they were, um … avoiding the plague.

Today medical science has all but eliminated the plague. Not completely, however. There is still an extremely viral strain of the plague that even expert medical researchers are finding impossible to eradicate. It’s called the IRS.

In spite of the advances made by the health-care industry (emphasis on the word industry), our planet is still plagued by various infections such as the common cold, the uncommon cold, strep throat and its sleazy cousin (strep tease), the flu, pinkeye, stinkeye, indigestion, and of course-ingrown toenails.

With the invention of the handshake by the pharmaceutical industry, nowadays we are forced to engage in preventative measures to ensure that we do not contract any of the above-listed maladies. If we do not maintain our vigilance, our social contact with the public comes at a cost.

A few weeks ago Joanne and I met Julius and Marsha for our regular Saturday morning breakfast at our regular greasy spoon-Larry’s Greasy Spoon. Our regular waitress-I will not mention her real name, but we’ll call her Flo-spied us walking in and tried to hide. Joanne saw her duck behind some greasy egg-and-bacon-smeared platters.

After Julius stood up and shouted, “Hey, Flo,” she gave us a knowing look (her knowing look is remarkably similar to a scowl-but that’s just Flo). She stood there and pulled her little order pad from her cleavage and started scribbling. She does not even bother taking our order anymore. I guess you could say that we are somewhat predictable.

As she was jostling our breakfast platters on a well-dented tray the size of a garbage-can lid, she reared back and sneezed all over my senior-discounted, triple-egg, seven-bacon-strip slam-dunk breakfast special. She swiped her nose on her forearm Harley tattoo (her cute little pink waitress outfit only had short sleeves) and then, after she flopped the tray down on our table, pulled up a corner of her greasy apron (she intentionally keeps it greasy so Larry thinks she is working really hard) and wiped off my senior-discounted, triple-egg, seven-bacon-strip slam dunk breakfast special.

I would have been OK with all of that, except she broke the yolks. I cannot abide yolks running into my onion-and-cheese hash-brown side order.

When we arrived back home, Joanne made me take a bath in milk,oatmeal, honey and vinegar. No water-just milk, oatmeal, honey and vinegar. She said it is one of the homeopathic remedies she had been reading about in her new magazine, Homeopathic Homes and Gardens. She said it would prevent me from catching flu and colds.

She scribbles notes on the pages as she reads it every night while I watch TV, suffering from my indigestion and uncontrollable stomach gas (if you know what I mean). It always seems to flare up during commercials. So it pretty much stays flared up.

Since she started reading Homeopathic Homes and Gardens, I have become her guinea pig. She tried using actual guinea pigs like those poor little furry victims found in fancy pharmaceutical labs. But apparently guinea pigs, while well-suited to tolerate the toxic chemicals and harsh drugs found in research laboratories, do not have the stamina to endure Joanne’s more aggressive homeopathic remedies. And since many of you share my columns with your children, I will exercise my journalistic discretion and simply say that they are now in guinea pig heaven burrowing through endless see-through plastic tubes and tirelessly running in merry-go-round tread mills.

Dr. Joanne has prescribed everything from apple cider vinegar to boost my immune system, to garlic (not those innocuous, odorless little pills, but an actual apple-sized garlic bulb that I eat every morning with my pot of Mr. Coffee) to keep my blood thin. She also gives me a cocktail made of crushed butterfly wings as an antidepressant. The only problem is she gets depressed killing all of those pretty butterflies.

Her latest discovery is one that ranks right up there with shrunken heads and bone-rattling. She read about it in last month’s issue of Homeopathic Homes and Gardens. This is somewhat of a sensitive issue, so if you are the least bit squeamish, dear reader, I suggest that you flip the page and read the obituaries-a much more pleasant topic.

Recently, I have (like many folks) developed a mild case of hemorrhoids. I have tried everything that Wal-Mart has to offer. No help. So Dr. Joanne, after carefully researching several articles on this sensitive issue, brought home the recommended homeopathic cure.

Super glue.

This may be the last homeopathic remedy that I will test for her. I’m not sure how the hemorrhoids are doing. It’s kind of hard to tell. But she and I can both provide testimony to this: it is a lot quieter now when I watch all those television commercials.

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Bill Rausch is a freelance writer from Little Rock. Email him at [email protected].

Editorial, Pages 13 on 03/17/2014

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