I’ve been sick for eight straight days. A summer cold is wrong…all wrong. I can handle the sniffles, the congestion, and the fever in the winter months but when the sun is shining and the temperatures are high but not as high as my temperature, it just makes me mad. I know I shouldn’t be complaining because things could be worse but I want to and it’s my sick pass.
As you can imagine I have had nothing but time to think in my bed. I remember now why parents are the best and being sick as an adult just isn’t the same. People care but you definitely aren’t getting mommy and daddy’s five star treatment.
I’m the kid that got sick if you had a virus and just spoke to me on the phone. Yes, you lived in another city, but some voodoo powers always took over and I ended up with the bug. I had no luck.
When I was little it meant missing school. I hated missing classes. I was a worry wart back then and if I had to miss my assignments I got very nervous. So, my parents would lie to me and tell me they would wake me in morning for school, but they never did. I felt sicker from the anxiety than the actual ailments I was challenged with that day. I was just that kid that didn’t want to disappoint anyone.
Sick days did, however, have plenty of perks. I would wake up to my mother’s lips on my forehead checking for a fever. Her hands would slowly caress my hair as I laid there whining about my sore throat. She would slowly put ear drops in and massage around my earlobes to help them find there way down the canal. In between those much needed naps she would wake me to make sure I took my Tylenol and drank plenty of fluids. She would make sure I had soup and some crackers. She would let me do whatever I wanted because you can’t get yelled at when you are sick. Mommy was my angel.
That same wonderful caring mom turned into Satan on plenty of sick days too. Her devil side came out when she had to give me the ice bath. The freezing cold water on my feverish body was torture. It was shocking and scary for a kid. I always knew that when my temp was high and my mother made the call to my father at work and then to her mother that it was over. If I could have made a run for it I would have but clearly I was not running anything but a temperature.
And, yes, there were times that I got tied up by my brother so my parents could force the nasty pink liquid, Penicillin down my throat. When it came time for the bottle with the child proof cap and the tablespoon was coming at me I was hell bent on taking it. I ran around the house like a chicken without a head. I kicked, screamed and cried like someone was going to kill me. It was my worst nightmare every eight hours on the dot and my older brother’s dream come true as he sat back laughing at my demise. You can imagine that payback was not fun for him. What goes around comes around. A younger tormented sister never forgets.
My father was lucky enough to always come out smelling like a rose. He let mom do all the dirty work as most father’s do. He was gentle and caring. He was soothing and comforting. I was his baby girl and for me he had some secrets up his sleeve or shall I say in his medicine cabinet. Those nights that my nose was stuffy and my head was too he knew just what his baby needed. “The Miracle Medicated Ointment” to the rescue!
It was old and by old I mean this stuff must have been around since the fifties. It was five ounces of old school feel good. It was a soothing antiseptic that came in a little tin. Dad would twist off the lid and put it up to my nose and say, “Breathe it in.” Then he would get a gob of the Vaseline looking ointment and stuff some in the opening of my nose, on my chest, and on my head. It felt tingly, and it felt good. It was like Vicks Vapor Rub on crack.
For those of you in suspense, it’s Rawleigh’s Medicated Ointment. You can’t get it on a drug store shelf and if you can let me know. Please. It doesn’t cure you overnight but it helps and it makes you feel good for a little while. It will put you to sleep and it will clear your congestion. It was my dad’s little miracle and my “Awww, thank God I can finally sleep now” ointment.
When I left my parents house to move out on my own I didn’t take too much from them. I did however bogart the Rawleigh’s medicated ointment. That five ounce tin is fifty years old, at least. It’s been used by our family of four for at least thirty three years. With that being said you do the numbers. If each person had three colds a year or congestion three times that’s twelve uses times thirty-three years, giving us a grand total of 396 uses!
I still have the same tin and it’s still almost full. No kidding and no exaggeration. A little Rawleigh’s goes a really long way. Five ounces is probably down to four.
Yes, I’m an adult and my parents can’t be here to coddle and care for me when I’m sick these days, well, not for the common cold or flu, but they are always there for me. My dad isn’t at my bedside rubbing on the Rawleigh’s like when I was a kid. But, that little tin has been by my side this whole week.
It’s been helping me clear the way my whole life. No expiration date. It’s magic to me how it works and how well it still works. It’s a miracle that has lasted a lifetime given to me by my parents.
It’s traveled different medicine cabinets, nightstands, sofas, and the home I grew up in to the house I call “home” now. It stands the test of time just like the love from my family. It’s an old school cure that will surely be used by my children.
This five ounce tin of the “Miracle Medicated Ointment” has lasted fifty years and may it last another fifty. It was created half a century ago with love and all natural ingredients. When you’re sick there’s no expiration date on love or Mommy and Daddy’s five star treatment. If that can’t help cure your cold and make you feel better nothing ever will.
