Calamity in the remedy
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
Just when I was getting my head around the idea that anything so
grimly named as Spam was actually a food product, rather than a
coded CIA greeting or a rust-filler component, a story floated across my
desk.
The dazed sub-editor who launched it in my direction,
murmered: “Look, they've found a new use for Spam.”
I wondered what other possible uses there could be. Spam-can book ends? Spam platform-shoe heel extensions?
“Spam makes great furniture polish,” the article, from America,
announced. “And no, it doesn't smell.”
Right about then it struck me: Too many Americans have too much time
on their hands.
Or they're unusual lateral-thinkers.
I could just see it: some office exec, eating his Spam sandwich,
becomes transfixed by the dirt on his mahogany powerzone.
“I know,” thinks he, for no reason known to mankind, “I'll just smear the
rest of my Spam sanger on the desk and see if that cleans it ...”
The question is: how many other fillings did he desk-test first? His
cleaners are probably still finding the chutney drips down the desk
legs.
Home remedies are mighty peculiar things - taken with the
seriousness of rocket-fuel formulae in some years, and sneered at in others.
I remember when I was a wee girl - at a time when beehive-haired
mums in Nana Mouskouri glasses conferred knowingly about remedies of
baking soda and vinegar - a relative gave me a book. I still have it. It was called Everything The Housewife Must Know About Stain Removal To Keep a Happy Home.
Until then, little had I realised that familial happiness hinged so delicately upon my ability to remove beetroot stains.
I didn't think much of the book, except for the chapter on removing
chewing gum from hair (use peanut butter), which I spent many hours
laboriously testing with 10 sticks of chewie, two jars of peanut
paste and a pair of (supposedly) child-proof scissors, in case disaster
struck. It did - and don't ask.
But the wheel has turned. Now home remedies are in again. Hip
bookstores in trend-setting America are stocking pearlers like
Chicken Soup and Other Folk Remedies; Polish Your Furniture with Pantyhose and Paint Your House with Powdered Milk.
But now, being the ’90s, there's something for everyone: Men, want a
smooth shave? Try using peanut butter. Insomnia? Sniff a cut onion
before bed. Hangover? Squeeze lemon under your armpits. Dirty toilet
bowl? Then Coke is it. Need a kick to the old sex drive? Eat pumpkin
seeds.
How remedy inventors make these leaps is beyond me. But I do think
I'd like to watch what an electric razor could do to a chunky
peanut-pasted face. (I suspect one shouldn't stand too close.)
Still, far be it for me to pass judgment without a little first-hand
research.
Thus, I hereby vow to spend the week sucking down pumpkin seeds in
search of a moment's visceral thrill.
I'll let you know - if I don't choke to death first.
© Sheryl-Lee kerr & The Advertiser, 24 JUN 1997.