THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 14, 1995 TAG: 9511140023
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
THERE IS LITTLE that a raw potato cannot cure, says my mother-in-law, when properly applied to the afflicted body part and buried under the right sort of moon.
For those few stubborn ailments that don't respond to raw starch, she has another cure-all: Vicks VapoRub.
Of course, that may be because a raw potato, even when sliced in julienne strips, will not go up one's nose. It is possible that mashed potatoes might do the trick, but then those aren't raw and, remember, it has to be RAW and BURIED under the right sort of moon. So Vicks VapoRub, being a commodity quite similar to natural substances already found in the nose, has to fill the bill.
Not that I would ever refer to my husband's nose as a bill.
Still, it was his beak that led to my discovery of the mystical cure-all powers assigned to VapoRub by my West Virginia kin. We were reading quietly in bed the other night when he suddenly announced: ``Ooh. My ear's all burny. Must have got some Vicks in it.''
My gaze spoke volumes. But I asked anyway. ``What,'' I inquired, ``are you doing with Vicks in your ear?''
He gave me a disgusted look. ``I didn't put Vicks in my ear,'' he explained patiently. ``It's in my throat. You know, where the tube runs up to inside my ear.''
``What,'' I inquired in a slightly louder voice, ``are you doing with Vicks in your throat?''
``My head is stopped up and when I sniffed it up my nose, some must have gone down my throat,'' he said in the tone of a parent explaining gravity to a small child.
``Don't you read the warning labels?'' I shouted, leaping to my knees. Even when astonished, I know better than to stand on the bed. ``Vicks is for external use only.''
And he spoke the magic words. ``My mother,'' he said, ``always puts Vicks up her nose.'' Then he added, ``And it does not say that.''
I pointed out the pertinent words on the label. His eyes bugged out. Of course, that may have been because his ears and throat were REALLY burny by that time. He reached for the phone and rang up his mother. And handed the receiver to me.
``Of course, I know you're not supposed to take Vicks internally,'' she said, a little irritably. ``I can read.''
``So why do you do that? And why does your son do that?'' I asked.
``Because it works. And it'll fix an earache, too. Just rub a little on a cotton ball and stuff it in your ear.''
I handed the phone back to my husband so she wouldn't hear me laughing.
``Diane's laughing,'' he said into the receiver and handed it back.
``You know, if you can't sleep, you can put a little dab of it in the corner of your eye and pull it back toward your ear with your little finger and it'll put you right out,'' my mother-in-law was saying.
``Isn't that . . . um . . . burny?'' I managed to ask.
``Of course it is,'' she said, but I didn't hear the rest. I was handing the receiver back to my husband.
I dabbed the corner of my eye with the sheet.
My husband put the receiver down and regarded me severely for a moment. This was, after all, his mother. He respects his mother, even though she buys horse shampoo because some country-western singer swears it makes his coat shiny. Must have been Porter Waggoner.
I handed the Vicks jar back to him, without a word. There was really nothing I could recommend in its place.
We were, after all, out of potatoes. by CNB