HEALTH: And how to handle the lack of it

The Clan Mugford treats the common cold and the odd bout of flu as something to be handled in anything but the common manner. "Take two aspirin and goto bed?" Pshawww!

And almost none of the males in our family handles it the same way. My Dad heads for the cabinet where he keeps packets of NeoCitran stacked like so many bars of gold bullion. My brother Wayne immediately downs a Gravol from his stash of motion sickness pills. From my extended family, Nick, mostly at the urging of his better half, Genie, reaches for ever-ready bottles of echinecea and Zinc tablets. My brother Rick might be the lone Mugford holdout for aspirin.

Now, myself, I have dabbled with all of the above. They seem to help. But my remedy is Vick's VapoRub, heaping gobs of it, smeared all over my chest. Like most things, I don't do it lightly. I stink of menthol feet away. The advantages of living alone is that I don't care [G].

For too many years, I dug my VapoRub out of a big blue ceramic container. It was big enough that you couldn't hide it in the medicine cabinet. It variously resided in the upstairs closet or on the back of the toilet, depending on how many people were using simultaneously. Once I started living on my own, it moved permanently to a ledge in the bathroom, especially-built to hold the multifarious pills, inhalers and huffers I have to put up with each day.

Then, the unthinkable happened. The container was empty. Off to the local Shoppers Drug Mart I went, looking for the familiar blue container. I couldn't find it!!

I hunted down a store clerk and asked where the VapoRub was. How could I miss a honking big blue container?

Turns out, they don't make those containers any more. Haven't for years! VapoRub comes in these little ittie bittie jars. Plastic jars. Dark blue jars, not the cerulean ceramic I've grown up with. I was stunned. But not so stunned that I didn't observe the family tradition and buy five jars. I'm glad that I did.

I've spent most of the last two and a half days contending with a cold (teach me to let people in my house) that I'm sure I got by playing host early on the weekend to a friend needing help with a computer problem. I've gone through a half-jar of my preferred remedy. And here I find myself feeling good enough to do some typing.

Remember, I only play a doctor in writing. Do not follow the medical advice typed above without consulting your personal physician.