Men just don’t know what to do when they get sick. All men! Some men? Me!
In the first place, men never get sick. Men are men, therefore immune from physical and psychological shortcomings.
Thus, there is no reason for us to even try to remember what our mothers did for us when they thought we had tummy aches.
And, since our kids only got sick on their mother’s watch, which was 24-hours a day, there was likewise no need for us to pay attention to ill-youths? diet.
Oh, wow, have I learned the falseness of these beliefs and egocentric thoughts!
About 6 p.m. Thanksgiving eve, I felt my stomach making a suggestion, and it wasn’t for thirst or food. An hour later, I emptied said stomach, then, to get a fresh taste in my mouth, I swilled down some orange juice.
An hour later that left me. How can orange juice, a source of vitamins E, B, D, G and O and other healthy things added by citrus producers, be bad for me?
So, when I called to cancel out of a party, the lady scorned me as I asked for dietary advice. No, no, no acid. No milk either. Chicken soup and crackers, she said.
Ah, yes, I do recall, probably from some Progresso commercial during a football game, that such soup was good for us.
Another call to tell the couple I was to pick up enroute to the party that I wasn’t coming, gave me the opportunity to verify the first grandmother’s advice.
Same answer: chicken soup and cracker.
One more call, this one for sympathy from daughter Luan. Same thing: chicken soup and crackers. I’d read ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul? years ago and it said nothing about its healing ability.
I had chicken noodle soup in the house. I heated the ingredients in a bowl. The broth tasted good, but not the noodles. Shayna didn’t get any of the liquid, but she sure loved the noodles, carrots and celery.
Why do so many soup makers think they have to add carrots? I know: color.
So, now it’s Thanksgiving morning, time for Luan and I to sip a Bloody Mary and prepare the dressing. I was down for the day, and the next.
Here I am, lying in bed upstairs on my greatest dinner day of the year, while 13 people gathered down below, laughing and joking. I heard the grandkids playing with my windup toys, some of the adults critiquing a football game and the women pre-tasting everything from cranberry relish to candied yams.
And, because I’m a man, who cannot get sick, who couldn’t remember his mother’s remedies and his wife’s treatments for tummy aches, I layed there limper than a damp dishrag, with off and on hot and cold feelings, unable to sleep.
Two mornings after Thanksgiving I felt great.
Oh, wow, again. And, I’m hungry. And, there sits an apple pie on the kitchen counter.
Just a small piece, washed down with swig of milk. Is that good, or what?
An hour later I had a very different feeling. My stomach, esophagus, pancreas, liver, left elbow, varicose veins and right earlobe felt like they were being eaten by nitric acid.
Pepto Bismol, Alka Seltzer, Rolaids and water were poured in to extinguish the fires. They and time brought me to the time Sunday when felt I could close the phone book previously opened to funeral homes.
It’s hell being sick, especially at holiday time, but I was so stupid to not pay attention to my mother’s and Hazel’s cures.
Male ego can be a terrible thing.