Battling the flu and remedies
May I please crave your indulgence for a minute. I know I was supposed to be presenting you with part two of the dumbest inventions of the 20th century, but I have just realised that it has been almost a year to the day since I started this column and I feel Ihave something I need to get off my chest.
About hald a kilo of mucus, that's what I need to get off my chest. It is an amazing coincidence that the subject that my first column was about has so incapciatated me exactly one year later. Or is it?
Like most people I suffer an annual bout of the flu. What's amazing about mine is that it is so damn regular. Come July, the old aches an pains kick in and the tap in my head starts up and I start making this wheezing noise that reminds me of my grandfather when we found him pinned under the wheelbarrow filled with nudie magazines (I don't think we need to hear any more of that story).
But strangely my mid-July flu is the only regular thing about my health - that and this strange correlation between fruit cake and wind that I seem to suffer from. Boy, talk about the Christmas dinners that has ruined.
This time I thought why not try some natural remedies, and let's start with the most natural remedy of all, rubbing some Vicks on your chest. Now the last person who rubbed Vicks on my chest was my mother, but seeing as I'm an adult now, I thought I'd do it myself.
Unfortunately I forgot the one piece of advice that my mother gave me, "when you rub Vicks on your chest, make sure you wash your hands throughly afterwards". Well that was one midnight trip I won't be forgetting in a hurry.
Then I bought a handful of herbs from a cab driver. Seriously this cabbie heard the disgusting noises I was making in the back seat and sold me for $10 a plastic bag filled with what he called secret Arab herbs that he grew in his backyard and sells to punters during the flu season.
Upon taking them home and infusing them in hot water, I realised that the only thing Arabic about them was the fact that they smelt like a camel on heat. I took one swig, felt sick and had to lie down for the rest of the afternoon.
My loving fiance took pity on me and bought me some black slimy stuff from the health food shop that smelt worse than the Arab herbs and left an aftertaste like some hippies had set up a commune in my soft palate.
She then insisted on giving me a chest clearing massage that succeeded in seperating two ribs from their place and moving most of the mucus into the area just above my spleen.
After these attempts to go herbal not only did I still have a flu, but my ribs hurt, I stunk, and my genitals are red and puffy from the chest ointment.
I have finally come to the conclusion that modern, Western medicine might not work but at least it won't do you any more harm, unless of course you take your day tablet at night and vice versa. Boy, that can lead to some crazy times. In fact, I think that's what got Grandpa started. #
-mikey robins