I have friends who aren’t sure, exactly, if they’ve ever
seen a cold sore. This amazes me, as I’m
pretty sure that everyone in my family – and we’re counting the cousins as well
– is a carrier.
“We’re not even a huggy, kissy family,” I explain to
friends. "I mean, babies, yeah. Babies are open game. We kiss the dickens out of babies."
“Huh,” they say, looking for an exit.
“Seriously,” I
say. “I can’t remember ever
kissing my parents on the lips.”
This is usually met with some sort of blank stare and
then a broad grin. We are, after all,
Midwesterners.
Kissing on the lips is meant for your wedding night.
I point out, of course, that the cold sore is caused by a
virus, that nothing will get rid of it, that it’s not something I picked up
whilst working as a carnie, nor was it part of a two-for-one deal with any
other crusty-sored display of dubious affections.
This is met with exactly the kind of response one expects
amongst the smart-aleck set.
And so it was Easter this last Sunday. There was ham, there was asparagus, there was
a lemon pound cake that I begged my mother for.
And there were stories.
My mother is holding a bottle of water. The ham was particularly salty, and we are
all swollen as ticks.
She regards the bottle.
“Isn’t it funny? Bottled
water?” She takes a drink. “You know, there was 14 of us kids growing
up. Mom would keep this big pail of
water in the kitchen, and when you wanted a drink, why, there was a big ladle
in there. You’d go in, grab that ladle
and drink as much as you could.” She
shakes her head, amused. “Bottled
water,” she says.
And there’s another mystery solved.
Why does the family have cold sores?
Well ladle me tell you a story…
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20 comments:
Ahhh, family legacies...
Amusing. But fyi, L-Lysine.
Funny. :-)
That slans it Lucy.
That is so funny!
I love how old people reminisce.
"In my day we had to kill and gut the cow. We had steak and new shoes."
And somehow this was a good thing?
Hari OM
...ah yes - but it began with all that baby-wooing!!!.... Sounds like you had a grand Easter gathering and no doubt we'll be ladled some more of the good stuff e'er long... YAM xx
We all had to use the same glass. I wonder why I don't get them, although my siblings erupted regularly.
A story from the old days can explain so very much, can't it?
"Kissing on the lips is meant for your wedding night" Bwahahahahaha! Excellent line!
We weren't a kissy family either. And now I'm kind of glad :)
No cold sores here. And we weren't a kissy family either. Some kissy people have married in - and I still find it a bit difficult.
That's a midwestern family all right. Mine was very much the same way.
I wonder what's worse....a population who fights cold sores occasionally, or a world drowning in empty plastic bottles.
We're not kissers, but we are huggers. I had a case of shingles and I um, think, the virus is related, but don't let me scare you. I was scared drinking from
the same ladle as my cousins when I was a kid and had to visit them. Hope you crust over soon.
There was a water pail in our home, too, and I had to go fill it from the neighbor's well. We also had a ladle though we weren't so fussy - we just called it a dipper.
This explains so much! :)
:) I am not from a kissing family either...but we did get our fair share of cold sores. We did have a dipper when I was little:)
I've never liked sharing cups or glasses, the thought of a water bucket and ladle horrifies me. We weren't a kissy family either which suited me just fine.
So far I've managed to avoid cold sores.
Yuck!
I'll remember not to share ladles in the future.
I remember in our bathroom there was a glass that all us kids would use to get a drink at night, never thinking about sharing cooties with my 2 brothers and sister!!!
They run in our family as well. And weep. And seep. Ick. I'm trying to think of a communal source we could have accessed. With the sulphur-laden water with which I was raised, how could anything get through?
They DO run in families. My husband and sons get them, but I never do.
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