Crumby’s Free Medical Advice

Last year about this time, or probably somewhat later, I had all kinds of troubles. Red banished me to the shed. I had to sleep on cow hides. I almost went deaf. I smelled nothing for months on end. My existence in that awful wilderness, totally bereft of most of my senses, was terrible. All I had to look forward to, day or night, was a bag of treats Lleu Llaw or Ray might sometimes bring to the shed. Yet if I was not actually handy at the shed, those twain would eat up all my treats themselves. So in addition to all the rest of my woes, I pert near starved. Eventually though, thanks to Rayetta, the CB Druidry let me back in the house.

After I finally got back in the house, Rayetta decided that I needed to have some of my symptoms treated with medicine. That’s how I wound up in the prescription line at the People’s Pharmacy. In such a situation as that, waiting in line, I enjoy providing various kinds of information to those in line or those generally within earshot, for example, information about my ears and nasal passages. So that’s what I was doing as the People’s Pharmacy personnel filled my prescription, to whit, providing information about my various serious sensory deprivations to all the interested parties.

I can provide all that interesting information to everyone because I am gifted with the gift of gab plus a booming voice that carries well. Pretty soon I found myself all set at the counter. I explained my problems to the elderly lady confronting me with my filled prescriptions. I have allergies, I explained. I am allergic to all manner of vegetable and animal detritus. Eventually my ears get stove up by the allergies so I can’t hear as the snot or boogers backs up into my various auditory passages. Neither may I smell. If the greatest passage of gas ever recorded, exploded right here in front of my nostrils, I would not smell a single molecule of that particular gaseous passage.

Oh you poor dear. Well here’s your prescriptions. Now, I should explain about this medication. This one goes in your nose. Shake the bottle gently. Then tuck your chin down on your chest. Squirt twice into each nostril. Be sure to inhale as you squirt. If you don’t inhale, most of this very expensive medicine will run out your nose. That won’t do you much good, will it! Take two of these pills everyday. Be sure to eat something before you take the pills. Do you eat dairy products?

Yes I do. I eat lots of dairy products. In fact, I was fixing to enjoy a delicious cup of cinnamon apple yogurt, preparatory to taking my first helping of these pills.

Hmmm. Well all those dairy products are making your allergies worse. Bacteria love to feed on all those dairy products. The bacteria invade your noggin when your noggin is weakened by the allergies. Those bacteria then thrive on all the dairy products you are eating up.

But I thought yogurt was good, fer me. Yogurt keeps my waste emission system operating at a high rate of efficiency with little or no rectal itching and burning.

Hmmm. That may be so, but those dairy products have just the opposite effect on your noggin.

They do! Well what should I eat then?

Vegetables.

About then an actual pharmacist appeared on the scene. The pharmacist put an end to our interesting conversation, alluding to the fact that the kindly old lady was not actually a pharmacist or nurse or health care professional. Also, some other customers wanted their prescriptions.

The old ladies advice had no immediate impact on my behavior. Yet I pondered on her advice. Gradually, I began to feel a reluctance regarding dairy products. I cut back on the yogurt and the rest of it, but every once in a while, I would find myself guzzling up a quarter gallon of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup.

Now I am pretty sure those dairy products were messing me up. So after my last ice cream frenzy, I swore all that off except for a little fat free milk on my grape nuts or oatmeal. Maybe that old lady had some good advice.