Yesterday a customer of mine suggested that one take those little children’s aspirin to prevent such tummy upset. I didn’t know they still made ‘em. What with the risk of Reye’s Syndrome and the advisability of the little tykes sticking to Tylenol for their feverish needs, I was pretty sure St. Joseph’s Aspirin was off the market. St. Joseph’s were those tiny orange flavored tablets that melted on your tongue and tasted so good. I used to sneak into the medicine cabinet and eat them like candy. Never had a headache my entire childhood. But whenever I got a cut, for some reason I’d bleed like a stuck pig. (Bleed like a stuck pig, what a gruesome simile that is). I was twelve before they finally decided I wasn’t a hemophiliac.
Etymological digression: Hemophiliac is an interesting word. The two Latinate suffixes “phobia” and “philia” refer to fearing and loving. A homophobic individual fears homo(sexuals). Francophiles love things French. Photophobics hate light. Green plants are photophilic, they love light. If you like thin middle-eastern dough you could be described as Filo-philic. “Hemo” is medical shorthand for blood. Being a hemophiliac, by extension, means you love blood. Now I suppose that if you knew that one cut, slice or laceration would lead to the ultimate loss of all you have, it would make you love your blood all the more. But to my twisted brain saying a person is a hemophiliac seems suspiciously close to calling them a vampire.
Back to the main subject: I would imagine the recent problems of the catholic clergy in regards to sexual abuse of children would not help products that used names like St. Joseph’s Aspirin, Father O’Flaherty’s Pickles and such like. Not that the Catholic Church didn’t make their own damn bed. Forcing your priesthood to not have sex and then referring to their earthly charges as “laymen” or the “laity” has got to lead to trouble eventually.
Speaking of child abuse and aspirin: A natural point of origin for salicylic acid (AKA: aspirin) is the bark of the willow tree. When our aging ancestors instructed us to go cut our own willow switch with which they would then beat our behinds, were they aware of the potential pain killers residing in said instrument of punishment? And are us now grown, formerly unruly children going to benefit in any way? Certainly the proximity of said switchery to the potentially cancerous colons in question earlier in this discussion must be significant.
“Ma! Can I have sum assburns?”
