When I was about seven our family moved to Hamilton, Illinois. This distanced us from the majority of our relatives, who lived in Ohio, by enough miles that it took at least eleven hours to backtrack for a visit. Therefore, we did not see Grandpa Davis and the gang as often as we would have liked. But we got to know him pretty well vicariously through my mother's love and admiration for him. One thing we learned was, while he was not a medical doctor, he could cure most illnesses by swabbing the inside of the throat with a gob of black goo that smelled like turpentine, delivering it on the end of a skewer length Q-tip. After that his instructions were to rub a thick coating of Vicks VapoRub all over the chest and go directly to bed. At the onset of any cold, my mother would pull out our little jar of the salve and launch into this story, while I imagined Grandpa's barrel sized vat of Vicks VapoRub, probably kept in the coal room of his basement, beneath a cloud of fumes hovering just under the lid.Of course the greater lesson was: When visiting Grandpa, do not, under any circumstance, ever say, "my throat hurts."
Sometime last week, I walked into our bathroom and noticed the familiar smell of Vicks VapoRub. Funny, nobody had been sick. I opened the double doors of the built in cabinet and scanned the area- two deep shelves jammed with bathroom and not -so -bathroom related items. The medicine type bottles and jars congregated middle left. I spied the Vicks VapoRub. Indeed the jar had escaped from its box, but when I sniffed near it, I did not smell the rub.
The next day, the noxious odor was more pronounced. I flung open the doors and inhaled. Pure menthol. I snatched up the Vicks jar and pushed it against my nose. The aroma was not emanating from this likely suspect. I packaged the innocent back into its box and closed the cupboard.
The day after that, a trip into the bathroom was enough to clear blocked sinuses. I upped the investigation by moving members of the cabinet, as in a game of chess, to see what might lie beneath or behind or beside. But nothing. Then it occurred to me, this could be a handy cure for the common cold. No more greasy, smelly chests. Sore throats and stuffy noses disappear with a few deep breaths from the open cabinet. I took a big drag through my nose. It really worked! At dinner, I told the family about it. Everyone had noticed the scent. Someone suggested we tack a flyer to a telephone pole in the neighborhood offering allergy relief to the masses. The thought was satisfying.
But on the fourth day the gas was emitting into the hallway. By the time I entered the bathroom, my eyes were so full of tears that I could not see. I would have to clean the cupboard. After eleven years of never cleaning it, this was going to be an all day task.
One by one I plucked each item from the abyss and placed it on the vanity behind me. I soon had a four foot long pile of medicine, candles, fossilized shampoo, soap rocks, vials of perfume, shells from the ocean, a feathered, black crow (that scared me to death at first touch) a kleenex box saved for its color scheme (the same one I'd hoped to use for redecorating the yet unpainted bathroom) face crayons for clowning, a miniature baby Jesus in a plastic cap manger decorated with brown construction paper in a basket weave design, a laminated place mat made by Outside the Box when he was in second grade that had been proclaiming to its cupboard mates for the past ten years that I was the best mom, a million tiny this and thats and a bottle of Tiger Balm Arthritis Rub, which had gooshed its guts out- the aromatic culprit. Below is a cross section of the loot.
Tiger Balm Arthritis Rub ingredients include: camphor, menthol, cajuput oil (an extremely pungent heat rub developed in about 1870 as a decongestant inhalant) which explained the healing effect when opening the cupboard- and methylsulfonylmethane. So, I figured we were lucky the shelving hadn't disintegrated.Obviously, this was the only way this cupboard would ever have gotten cleaned out. I threw away countless artifacts, but I returned the place mat so I will be reminded again in ten years that: "What is as lovely as my mother? An orange sunset at the day's end. A golden finch against the sun. A yellow tulip at tulip time. It's true all of these are lovely, But none are as lovely as you. The Best Mom." And I slid baby Jesus back into place among the myriad of suntan lotions, because I like the idea of always being able to find God in the midst of every circumstance.
There's still a faint wisp of menthol floating among the organization of that cupboard, just enough to keep me thinking about the possibility of patenting my invention of a special cabinet drenched in Tiger Balm Arthritis Rub, where the healing stench stays in the closet and owners need only fling wide the door and breathe to clear stuffed nasal passages and soothe a sore throat.This is a welcome improvement on Grandpa's gagging technique. I know all my cousins will buy one. Would you?
Heidi
