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Wednesday, December 29, 2004
My Cold Remedy
When you hear the words "staple items", you think of flour, sugar, salt, etc. Right. But Campbell's Chicken Soup is another of those items which you always need. I don't mean the kind like Chicken Stars or Chicken Goldfish, or Chicken Double Noodle.
You just need to keep on hand about half a dozen little cans of the regular Chicken Noodle kind. This is for the same reason you never want to run out of Puffs Plus Tissue...or aspirin...or anhistamine. You need these things because if you are a grandparent, every time a little preschool scholar pops into your house, along with the baby who is teething, you will get the sniffle that the children have. Only, since you are old and falling apart, you will become very sick and need to go to bed for a few days. So, next time you visit the store, stock up because winter is just underway. When you feel miserable and know you should eat but don't want to, that little can of Campbell's Chicken Soup is just the ticket, along with a chaser of aspirin/antihistamine and a side order of tissue. Oh, and you also need an ongoing supply of diet Coke. All these things are staple items, if not major food groups.
Optional but nice are your cable TV subscription and a little pile of grocery store books which is resupplied each week. When sneezing, coughing, and blowing your nose, you need distraction from the prevalence of mucous in your life. These are the times when you will happily turn to TV shows that would otherwise not appeal to a stone moron...things like Gomer Pyle reruns, reality shows about people who trade families for a couple of weeks and get into big fights, old western movies, ghetto movies starring foul-mouthed rappers making fools of themselves, shows where people are fixing up rooms in each others' houses, etc. You stare dully at the screen through runny eyes, mouth hanging open so you can breathe, blurring through dumb show after dumb show. It's soothing. When your eyes aren't quite so dim, you can turn to that nice little pile of new grocery store books. Grocery store books are those super fat paperback volumes available in the ...duh...grocery store. They involve situations entirely foreign to your life...sensational stuff. Grandma joins the CIA and they send her to do dangerous stunts in a Balkan country where no one speaks her language. She prevails, leaving behind her a trail of dead and injured persons who wished in vain to interfere with her mission. There's a whole series like that. Then there's another series all about deep sea adventures where the action is so hectic you can count on a life threatening situation every other page. There's a series about an Indian detective and his fellow inmates on the reservation in the American southwest. There's one about a coroner who describes in pitiless detail the autopsies she performs and the condition of corpses arriving at her place of business. There a series about a black psychiatrist who works with local and federal police groups to apprehend extra sicko criminals. There's a series of stories revolving around legal problems in small towm Mississppi and other spots in the backward south. There are so many series about CIA-like operatives rushing around the world from glamor spot to glamor spot taking advantage of IQ deprived women and killing someone on each page...I couldn't begin to remember them all. Anyway, all of these books are a fine distraction from the fact that you can't go five minutes without blowing your nose. So...cable TV, grocery store books, aspirin, antihistamine, diet Coke, Puffs Plus tissue, and Campbell's Chicken Soup. Keep these staples on hand because if you didn't get a cold yet this winter, your grandchildren will surely give you one soon. Properly supplied, you can ALMOST enjoy poor health.
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