Ok, now I've heard my fair share of home remedies in my life. When I had chicken pox the 2nd time (yes I had them twice. Had 14 sores the first round and years later in high school I had like 14,000), an old woman told my grandma and I that we should take a black hen out and kill it at midnight, then spatter the blood on my chicken pox. She said she wasn't sure if it would work on chicken pox, but it cured shingles, which was the same thing. She said it was urgent to do it because if the shingles 'touched' and created a belt that completely encircled the abdomen, that the person would die.

Country ignorance is a beautiful thing.


Anyway, I was coughing and couldn't stop. My ribs are sore and my throat even worse, so my wife gets up and comes back with a tub of Vicks and starts removing my socks. I ask her what in Sam Hill's name is she doing, and she starts rubbing the soles of my feet down with Vicks and then instructs me to put my socks back on. I'm making fun of her the entire time. Then she insists on putting it on the palms of my hands. I freak out and ask her what will happen if I, like, scratch myself during the night (already anticipating the pain), and she told me it'd be all my fault if i did. She told me she has no idea why, but her mom always did this and it worked...

Guess what. I stopped coughing. I don't know what the hell your feet have to do with coughing, or if it was a placebo type thing, but by golly, I stopped and slept ALL NIGHT for the first time since Saturday. It was a glorious thing.

I'm disturbed nonetheless.