Rarely are the seats full at the ballpark. One night I was there and they announced the paid attendance at around 9,000 people. That was their third highest attendance ever. Since the stands are so empty, a lot of little kids entertain themselves by running up and down the stairs, back and forth in the rows. One such tyke, around five or six years old came running up to where Debbie and I were sitting.
He waited until he got our attention and said, “I eat my boogers.” He made a perfect comedic pause before he continued, “Lots of them.”
He then ran off, I guess to inform other people of his culinary preference.
When I got home, I had to Google to see if there might be any scientific data on booger eating. To my surprise, most of the articles were actually positive and said that it might actually improve a child’s immune system. The only harmful side effect was that too much digging in the nose might lead to a nosebleed.
Recently, I was diagnosed with severe arthritis of the left hip joint, a condition that began when I twisted my hip in a dance lesson around 7 years ago. I explained to my new medical team, that I never had any treatments on my hip because I had developed a heart problem at the same time, and that always got priority. They asked me what I was taking for the pain and I told them that whenever I was in pain I squirted my hip with Wd-40 Oil.
They thought I was joking, but I managed to convince them that it was a serious home remedy I learned from my Dad, who learned it from my Aunt Miriam, who has been using it for decades and swears by it.
When they stopped laughing, they made an appointment for me to see an orthopedic doctor, who might have a more conventional treatment for my hip pain.
This past weekend I had a lot of things to do, so I sprayed the WD-40 oil on quite liberally before I left the house. I went to a Mavericks concert in Harrisburg, PA with my friend Maria on Friday. Then I went to Valley Stream, NY on Saturday to hang out with my friend Tilda. On Sunday I went to Long Beach, NY to see my friends John and Margaret. They live a couple miles from the Long Beach train station and I used to walk it until a couple years ago when the hip pain flared up.
I walked from the train station to the new post-Sandy boardwalk and the hip still felt pretty good. So, I figured I would walk a bit, rest a bit, and see how far I got. I made it all the way to their house, and we partied for hours.
On Monday I went to Secaucus, NJ to see my friends Barbara and Jim’s new apartment, (and to whup them at Scrabble). On Tuesday I headed to the Amtrak station in Penn Station to head back to Lancaster. I got there early and decided to call Debbie to see how she was doing without me. She asked me how my hip was doing after 5 days of being on the road.
I told her that it was doing well.
“Did you squirt more WD-40 on it?”
“Of course,” I said, I coated it well on Friday before I left the house, but I’ve discovered something else that’s really been helping me a lot.”
She took the bait, and asked me what it was.
“I eat my boogers,” I said laughing. “Lots of them.”
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
earlthepearl137 