Cure-Alls
 

In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Windex cured everything.

Toula Portokalos: [narrating] My dad believed in two things: That Greeks should educate non Greeks about being Greek and every ailment from psoriasis to poison ivy can be cured with Windex.

Gus Portokalos: Put some Windex.

In Chris Rock's family, Robitussin cured everything.

Chris Rock: When I was a kid, I had to be near-death to see a doctor, so my daddy got into the habit of putting Robitussin on everything, and I mean EVERYTHING!
[Impersonating his father and himself]
Chris Rock: Daddy, I got asthama! "Well here, take some Robitussin!" Daddy, I got cancer! "Here, take some Robitussin!" Daddy, I broke my leg! "Here, put some Robitussin on it... that's right, let the Robitussin sink in there."

Chris Rock: Yeah, boy! Let that 'tussin get in there. Let that 'tussin go down to the bone! If you run out of it, put some water in the jar, shake it up, more 'tussin! MORE 'TUSSIN!

Well, medical miracles aside, apparently everyone should know the cure for back pain, for ANY back pain, is a pillow.

Yes folks, sit on a pillow. That's all you got to do. Who knew?

I don't know why the pillow does more than the padding in a chair. But it just does. :rolleyes:

I've heard tell it works for hemmorhoids too, but the research is sketchy.

What are YOUR cure-alls?

Advil is pretty good for some things.

1) Duct tape - if duct tape doesn't fix it, you're not using enough.

2) We raised 3 daughters from birth to adulthood,
plus every visiting grandchild on orange-flavored Triaminic Syrup.

Kids have it made with modern medicine. Remember merthiolate? Geez mom, I'd rather my arm just fall off!

That stuff was nasty. And it was applied with a glass poking stick. WTF?

But Merthiolate burned like the dickens... Mercurichrome didn't

And it hurt like a mudder!

Now they have those nice little antibiotic creams. No pain. Kids no longer sit out in the field hoping they don't find you before your arm falls off from gangrene because the cure was worse than the injury!

Was it the sodium that made it hurt?

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/30/sc...id-or-not.html

All we kids would gave around the wound, and when Mom would put the merthiolate on, everybody would blow on it. In hindsight, that probably added more germs than it killed.

Strangely, I don't remember mercurochrome as part of my mother's armamentarium. Whatever she put on cuts HURT, though, so maybe it was.

Remember cod liver oil? (oh God, that dates me!) You just know that's where Mike Myers got the line, 'Better out than in, I always say!' I'd rather just die of Vit. A deficiency.

My late mil: Put some alcohol (a variation on the Windex; she was only half Greek, so perhaps that explains it)!

My cure-alls: a cup of good, strong coffee (kill or cure). Homemade chicken soup. Sleep.

Oh, and Heet liniment ... my parents' cure-all for sore backs. When I was about five years old I was fascinated with the soft cotton applicator thingy, and having been warned away from the Heet bottle in no uncertain terms, I waited until my parents were out one afternoon ... and I painted Heet on the screen of our little B&W TV. I just wanted to use that applicator on something - thought the TV would be safe.

The damned liniment etched the screen everywhere it touched - the back and forth lines and the drips that made their way to the bottom of the screen.

We couldn't afford to replace the TV, so for the next number of years we watched it through the scars of my failed experiment. That was worse than any spanking.

Homemade chicken soup was a favorite cure-all joke on tv for years.
Then one day my wife made some for my "incurable cold"... It worked !

:)

I love your TV story, ortho. Funny.

But when you were a little kid and sick? Mom putting Vapo-rub on your chest, was the best thing ever. I think it had more to do with mom's love than with the vapo-rub.

And when I was a teenager and getting over the flu, the first thing mom made when she thought I could tolerate food was tea and toast. It was wonderful. :sick2:

And flat ginger ale with dry toast for 24-hour flu (aka food poisoning :eek:).
The flat ginger ale was actually a great idea; too bad it tasted awful.

And Vapo-rub, yes, the best! I used it on my kids too and they loved it. :)

That TV story was awesome.

I have a similar memory from my childhood. My grandfather retired from his contracting business, and he had all these extra stickers that he would put on the sides of his trucks and equipment. They were left over, so he gave them to us grandchildren. I knew he put them on his trucks, so I put mine on the side of our family's VW bus. :lol:

This did not please my father, and I got a spanking. But he was able to peel the sticker off without damaging the paint.