It seems, to me at least, that down here in the South people really like to talk about their ailments. It’s a one-upsmanship of sorts. All you have to do is visit any Waffle House (if you can stand that “Welcome to the Waffle House” song some smart aleck sets to repeat on the juke box) and you’ll inevitably hear a comeback like this one:
“Gum disease,” someone will scoff while gnawing on his breakfast steak. “Yeah, well that’s nothing. My bunions are acting up, my cholesterol is through the roof, and on top of that I haven’t slept in four years on account of having to keep getting up to pee.”
This type of banter is not just reserved for roadside diners either, let me tell you. Here’s a typical morning at my parent’s beach house on Harbor Island, SC. I want you to imagine that Folgers’s commercial; the one where the family wakes up at Christmas to the smell of coffee and the lights twinkling on the tree as the family gathers round. Well, we wake up to the clink of spoons in a glass. I’ll go into the kitchen looking for a cup of coffee, only to find myself in a forty-five minute discussion about intestinal health over the morning Metamucil. It goes something like this:
“You know, Gary . . .” My Aunt Pam, bless her heart, is standing at the breakfast bar in her big, fluffy bathrobe, and I do not know why it bothers me so badly, but she won’t get out of it ‘til after noon. “I found this powder that’ll clean you out for two months straight.”
“No way.” My dad is clearly skeptical, being a physician and all. I can’t help but roll my eyes at him but I cut him some slack because at least he’s dressed. “Where did you hear about it?”
“From an infomercial,” she tells him smugly, as if this information has as much validity as if it came straight out of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dad’s still not biting, but he remains on course, taking a hefty slug of the chalky, orange stuff in his glass. After all, this is a man whose motto is “It’s all about the bulk, baby.”
“You know, Gary,” she counters, because her arguments generally have the same longevity as her bathrobe. “It’s like your car. You gotta change the oil every so often so it runs right.”
I love my Aunt Pam, bathrobe and all. She is a true Southern belle, meaning she’s as syrupy sweet as molasses and tougher than a two dollar steak at the same time. I don’t think I have ever met anyone that can clear out a dining room faster by discussing the length and solidity of a little ole hangnail on the top of her big toe.
As a child, I used to cringe at these dinners, counting down the minutes until I could be excused even if it meant I had to scrub the pots and pans, oven and floors, then take the dog out before having to weed and mow the lawn. I mean, how long can a bunch of grown-ups talk about cysts, co-pays, corns, and colons? It’s like they go to bed one day full of hope and health and endurance for a long, productive life and the next day they wake up only to find the pills in their medicine cabinet have quadrupled and can’t help but start pulling out their X-rays.
I was trying to explain this fascinating phenomenom over lunch at Brogen’s North with my friend Alicia but got a little distracted. It went down something like this:
“You just ordered soup,” stating the obvious like I am prone to do.
“I know,” Alicia tells me pulling out a brown bottle from her purse. “My stomach’s been messed up for weeks.”
“Mine too,” I say, grabbing the brown bottle smack out of her hand. “Probiotics, huh? Lactobacillus gasserit? Bifidobacterium bifidum? Does it work?”
“Who knows,” she answers before tossing back a pill with a big sip of iced tea. “My mailman’s daughter’s first grade teacher’s niece recommended it.”
“Well, let me know how it goes.” I hand her back the bottle. “How’s your hubby been doing these days?”
“He’s got that stomach flu that been going around,” She tells me, pushing her soup out of the way. “How come when a guy throws up, he has to do it really loudly? So he knows that I know he’s actually sick?”
“Tell me about it,” I say. “If Charlie comes down with something, he’s laid out like a MD80 on a Chicago O’Hare tarmac in the middle of a blizzard. If it’s me, I still have to pack the lunches and get the kids on the curb for carpool.”
“Speaking of which,” she says. “How’s Charlie doing lately?”
“Oh, his back is killing him and he can’t feel the entire right side of his left foot. He’s still mad at me for leaving my suitcase out in the middle of the room.”
“Really?” she suddenly perks up. “After my last sinus infection I can’t feel the top half of my face.”
“Oh, that happened to my mom’s best friend’s sister’s mother-in-law,” I tell her, signaling for the check.
“What did she do?”
“I think she just had to learn to live with it.”
Oh, well. It’s official. I am now a member of the Southern Family Fiber Club, a group in which I swore I’d never seek membership. It was inevitable, I guess, since I’m a Southerner to the core, not to mention, with my family, I came by it honestly. But as my Aunt Pam would say, I shouldn’t go off half-cocked with my feathers in a ruffle just because I finally figured out every dog has a few fleas.
What in the world is she talking about, you might wonder? Beats me. You’ll have to ask her yourself. Just be prepared to stay on the phone for a coon’s age and pray she hasn't had her annual check-up anytime recently. I guess at least now I’ll have something to talk with them about over the morning Metamucil.
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