I have a fear that my sister is, through acts borne purely from the best intentions, planting the seeds for potential problems in my niece’s psychological makeup. My dear sister is a fantastic person and a wonderful mum, she only wants the best for her daughter, but sometimes, things said to an impressionable seven year old really do stick. With a background as a dedicated healthcare professional – she’s a former intensive care nurse – she now works in the field of infection control and health improvement.
On our recent trip to Keswick, after her point out the “DWARF ON A SCOOTER!!!” the little one wanted to have a look around a soap shop in the town. She loved the shapes, colours and fragrances of the products and she picked out a bar for me to buy so that she could give it to her mum as a present. As she took it to the till to pay for, she said to the owner of the crowded shop, “My mum said you should only use liquid soap because bar soap is full of germs.”
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Tonight, the little one was all of a tiz because of tooth decay, declaring, “I’m never eating sugar again!”after her mum had given her the lecture about tooth decay being on the rise.
I pointed out that we ate loads of sugar as kids, didn’t brush our teeth twice a day and never visited the dentist until we were thirteen, “… and I only have eight fillings, look! So long as you drink plenty of water, which you do, brush your teeth before going to bed and when you get up in the morning, you’ll be fine.”
Jesus, when I was her age, I was scared of monsters under the bed and the recurring nightmare giant who used to come off the motorway to come and get me as I hid behind the post box near the bus stop. Tooth decay? Germs? Still, I don’t claim to be the epitome of robust mental health, so maybe it is better to be wary of things that are actually dangerous. I’m still giving her Haribo when she comes to visit, no child should miss out on that… unless they have crackpot vegetarian parents who, by definition, are borderline child abusers if they don’t allow their kids the pleasure of McDonald’s chicken McNuggets and funny bear face lunch meat.
Oh, she also protested that she’s not eating chicken McNuggets again because of the salt. I recently tried these things: having bought nine for Rocky, I needed to be sure they were safe for consumption by my precious little dog. Anyway, they’re the most flavourless things I’ve ever had the displeasure of eating, so I’m certain that salt isn’t a problem. They do, however, carry the Rocky and Nanna Con seal of approval, so I’m sure that, so long as they’re not accompanied by ketchup or barbecue sauce (i.e. flavour), they’re fine for kids in moderation.
I do hanker for those days when Pot Noodles were first introduced by Golden Wonder, when they had that lovely flavour of soya meat and salt. The bastardisation of this delicacy by, is it Unilever?, is nothing short of criminal. All they’re good for these days is filling a hole when hungry. And the fact that all the flavour has been substituted with potassium chloride means that it has to be supplemented by the user adding their own salt anyway: firstly enough to mask the mouth-burning potassium; secondly, additional salt to provide some sort of flavour. This results in you taking in more salt than you would have done had they left the fucking thing alone in the first place. Cocks.
Pain
I’ve been suffering of late from night time waking due to back pain. Every time I try to change positions during sleep, I am woken by discomfort in the area that suffered that injury because of the car headlamp bulb changing incident back in 2003. The GP I saw about it at the time was brilliant. He asked me to point at the area and, without looking or examining me himself said, “Well, that’s you with back problems for the rest of your life.”
I thought he was making a statement of fact, I didn’t realise that he was actually cursing me. Maybe I should see my doctor about it (Dr Foreman has since retired from the practice), but after two years of being there almost constantly for another problem, I’m so reluctant to go back there for something else. I feel as if I’ve had my money’s worth out of the NHS and I shouldn’t really be bothering them with anything else for a few years. It’s a good job that everybody else who accesses our health service has the same attitude as me or it would buckle under the pressure of people who constantly visit their doctor for the slightest thing.
The Snoring Dog 