Like it or not, if you’re a mom, it is your automatically assigned duty to become the household doctor when anyone in the house gets sick. When the car breaks down, call Dad. When a kid projectile vomits, that’s Mom’s problem. In most cases, moms aren’t actual doctors, and therefore they have never received any official medical training (other than that one time when she played doctor, which, ironically, is how she became a mom in the first place). Regardless of a mom’s medical ignorance, around the house, moms are the high ranking official when it comes to colds, flus, warts, headaches, scraped knees, decapitation, you name it.
While I was growing up, my mom had everything she needed to fix any medical problem with only three things: Aspirin, Vicks vapor rub, and an evil aerosol can of Solarcaine. The Vicks vapor rub would clear up any congestion problems by slightly dissolving the interior lining of my nose, utilizing a reaction of nuclear toxin gas emanating from my chest. Solarcaine was a spray that was supposed to get rid of any bacteria on a skinned knee by pummeling the injured area with high pressure gasoline. It hurt like hell! Essentially it was the canned 1980s version of cauterizing a Civil War battle wound.
The aspirin was used for absolutely every ailment from a headache to a broken leg until the beloved Muppets creator, Jim Henson, died after taking aspirin. Granted, he had a strep bacteria, too, but instantly, my mom threw away every single bottle of aspirin we had in the house.
It was weird: One day aspirin was given to me for everything, including sunburns, and then, overnight aspirin was the devil. After all, it did kill Kermit the Frog. But before Kermit croaked, it was those three things that my mom used to solve all of my “hurt tummies” and “ouchies.” To her credit, my mommy did always make me feel better.
My wife, whom I love, has a very different bedside manner for our kids and me, since now that I’m married my wife has taken over as my primary physician. My wife is more of a holistic healer. No medicines or drugs for her. She doesn’t believe in all that hocus pocus. She has only one go-to move for every single instance where someone doesn’t feel well. She simply asks the person this very awkward question, “Did you go poop?” Seriously. That is her only solution to any ailment.
“Honey, I have a stomachache.”
“Have you tried going poop?”
“Uh, no. I don’t need to go right now. I think I would have thought of that on my own.”
“You should try anyway. Go see if you can poop.”
“I know my body pretty well. There is no need to sit down in the bathroom and do nothing.”
“You never know. Just go in there and see what happens.”
“I guess I’ve never realized how much of a surprise going No. 2 can be for you. I don’t feel good. I don’t need to go to the bathroom. I just can’t grasp how this is supposed to help me.”
“Go poop and you will feel better.”
I’ve gone round and round the toilet bowl with her on this. She really believes if you don’t feel good, it is based on one thing: your body’s need to evacuate. My poor kids are stuck with the same advice.
“Mom, I have a bad headache.”
“You should try to poop.”
“Mom, can you help me with this splinter in my finger?”
“Yes, right after you go poop.”
“I have the hiccups.”
“Pooping will make your hiccups go away.”
Telling my wife that you don’t feel the need to go to the bathroom will not deter her from her evaluation of your medical condition. She will still tell you to “just try to go poop.” This is no joke. She thinks it is the actual answer to every single medical ailment that has ever come up. If she was put on a board of directors of a care center for treating cancer patients, she would suggest that they “poop the cancer out.”
One evening, frustrated with her endless diagnosis that I needed to go to the bathroom because I couldn’t stop coughing, I asked her, “Do you think people suffering from HIV would get better if they just went poop?”
“Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt them. I’m sure they would feel a little better.”
It has become a common smartass comment around my house: “Just go poop” is the answer to any problem, medical or otherwise.
“Dad, I’m having a tough time in my geometry class.”
I’ll sarcastically suggest, “Maybe you should go poop before the test.”
“That isn’t a bad idea,” my wife will interrupt, “it calms the nerves.”
Eventually, my wife fell ill with the flu. She had it pretty bad and was sick for days, the poor thing. I couldn’t help myself, though. Each time I saw her with her head over the toilet getting sick, I would say, “Honey, you’re doing it wrong. If you want to get better, you need to sit on the toilet and go poo poo. I don’t know who it was, but someone told me it fixes everything. In fact, the lawnmower won’t start. I’m going to hit the commode and see if that fixes it!”
Rob thinks his wife’s suggestion that he go to the bathroom to feel better is absolute crap.
This article appears in Jan 6-13, 2011.
