Posted on November 10, 2009
Criminality Gave Trey The Pink Eye!
The perilous landscape of daycare is fraught with danger at every turn. There’s the big kid who steals the bouncy balls from smaller kids, then laughs with delight as they cry bitter tears of crestfallen shame. There’s the stinky kid, whose parents believe that baths are things that happen to other people, and then there are kids like the boy with the perpetually snotty nose, the girl who’s discovered the childhood art of gleeking and so goes about misting everyone with her saliva, and the guy in who sits in the corner eating paste and licking his shoes. It is not a place for the timid or the easily infected, as all manner of disease and malfeasance run rampant through the echoing corridors of any given daycare facility. Recently, and sadly, Trey fell victim to one of the most pernicious and omnipresent forces of darkness that daycare buildings harbor like unseen bacterial terrorists: he came down with pink eye.
Pink eye, otherwise known as conjunctivitis, is a common childhood ailment owing to the fact that children have about as much concern for germs and proper hygiene as a chicken has for abstract mathematics and chalkboards. Kids just don’t care about things the way adults do, choosing instead to happily ignore the fact that little Sally just stuck a sucker up her nose and is now offering the mucus-encrusted sweetie to them in exchange for a turn on the swing set. Candy is candy, as far as they’re concerned – and a little snot is nothing to get in the way of a tasty treat, so they make the trade and leave little Sally to her swinging whilst they sequester themselves behind a tree to enjoy the candy in conspiratorial glee, keeping a vigilant eye forever trained on the big kid, lest he toddle over and snatch their sugary prize. A couple of days later, when they’re feverish and snotty themselves, I can assure you that no connections will be made in their tiny noggins concerning cause and effect. All they know is that they may feel yucky now, but the pink bubblegum antibiotic tastes like liquid candy so the whole thing’s a wash.
Apparently, another kid came to daycare with pinkeye earlier in the week, however the daycare didn’t feel the need to inform any other parents. Friday afternoon, Brittany and I received a call from Trey’s father informing us that our little guy had picked up the dread infection and was now suffering the ill-effects of a reddish and pus-encrusted looking ball. He told us not to worry though, and assured us he was on top of it. He implied that he took Trey to the doctor, and that he was already receiving treatment. Having been around enough kids throughout my life to understand the difference between a dangerous illness and a not-so-dangerous one, we took solace in the fact that Trey was receiving his antibacterial drops and that he would be all better in a few days. Unfortunately, we were wrong.
When we picked up him up from daycare Monday afternoon, the office staff cautioned us not to bring him back the next day. They insisted that, had he been taking drops since Friday, he should be much more improved than he obviously was, and encouraged us to take him to the doctor. I informed them that Trey’s dad had taken him to the doctor over the weekend, and that we were going to continue the drops as soon as we got home. However, once we pulled into the driveway and made the way up the sidewalk to the front door, it became all too clear as to why Trey’s eye hadn’t improved.
Sitting on the front porch was a small box that Trey’s father had left there for us, which contained the eye drops he’d been using. Earlier in the day, I’d sent him a text message asking if there were any dosage instructions on the bottle, and he told me there were and that he’d drop them off later in the day. However, what he dropped off was not what I’d hoped. What was on the front porch was, in fact, a small bottle of water housed in box labeled Similasan Homeopathic Pink Eye Relief. The keyword in that sentence should scream out to anyone who’s ever had even a passing interest in medical science and mythology, but for those less inquisitive than myself, let me point it out to you: homeopathic.
Homeopathy is a terrible, witch-doctor and snake oil concept that should have gone the way of leeches and the four humors by now, but which persists through the present day like some sort of hideous and embarrassing stain on the collective consciousness. Allow me to explain what homeopathy is, and why it doesn’t work. Homeopathic cures are nothing more than water (or some other inactive agent), pure and simple. The whole philosophy behind homeopathic medicine boils down to four key points:
1.) Do a proving
2.) Match symptoms of patient to proving and give matching substance to patient.
3.) Do not give the patient the substance; give him a highly diluted form of the substance.
4.) The more dilute the medicine, the stronger it is.
Go watch the video of James Randi explaining the whole absurd practice above if you’re truly interested, but I’ll briefly go over the rules here. First, the proving. The proving stage involves taking a substance and giving it to a healthy patient, then observing the results. If he gets nauseous and vomits, then that substance is noted as causing nausea and vomiting. Using this information, a homeopathic practitioner can then treat someone for nausea and vomiting by giving them this substance in an extremely – read: extremely – dilute amount. The amounts of “active ingredients” in any homeopathic medicine are so negligible as to be non-present and, in fact, the more dilute the ingredient is, the more powerful homeopathy subscribers believe its effects.
Take, for example, one of the active ingredients in Trey’s homeopathic eye drops: belladonna. Ignoring for the moment that Atropa belladonna is one of the most toxic plants found in the western hemisphere and that its more common name is Deadly Nightshade, let’s examine how much of it is present in the Similasan Homeopathic Pink Eye Relief product. It’s listed as Belladonna 6x, which means that there is a concentration of 0.001 mg/ml in the product itself. That’s one thousandth of one milligram per milliliter of water, which I would guess is roughly equivalent to a drop of water in an olympic-sized swimming pool, although I’m not a mathematician and ratios make my brain hurt. Still, it’s such an infinitesimal amount as to be non-existent – and a good thing too, considering the fact that belladonna has been historically used as a deadly poison.
The other ingredients in the eye drops are Euphrasia (6x) and Hepar Sulphurius (12x). Euphrasia is a relatively benign herb, and hepar sulphurius is otherwise known as calcium sulfide – only in homeopathy, it is prepared from ground oyster shells and sulphur heated together. Somehow, all of these substances together treat the symptoms of pink eye. The belladonna is for “redness, burning, grittiness”, the euphrasia is for “watery discharge” and the hepar sulphurius is for “inflammation”. Presumably, giving belladonna to a healthy person at some point resulted in redness, burning and grittiness, while euphrasia and hepar sulphurius produced watery discharges and inflammation, respectively. Therefore, by the logic of homeopathy, giving these same substances to someone experiencing all of these symptoms will somehow produce the opposite result in the suffering patient – but only if the substances are so diluted as to be non-present. Well, at least you can’t overdose on the stuff…
Unfortunately for Trey, his dad was probably hoodwinked by some well-meaning but poorly educated tech in a fake doctor’s coat at the local mega-pharmacy, and was sold the homeopathic bill of goods by someone who ought to know better than to shovel this absurdity onto a concerned parent. I don’t think Trey’s father is a big believer in homeopathy, since he doesn’t strike me as the back-to-nature/peace-and-love hippie sort of eco-green conversationalist that the homeopathic movement seems to attract. Rather, I suspect he meant well and trusted the advice of the pharmacy tech, or at least believed the hype printed on the product’s packaging. Whatever the reason, Trey’s been receiving watery eye drops with no efficacy towards healing his condition.
That night, immediately after finding the eye drops and examining Trey’s eye a bit more closely, we loaded him up in the car and drove down the road to one of those Doc-In-A-Box establishments that employ an actual doctor who receives walk-in patients through the early evening. A couple of hours and $160 dollars later, and we had actual medicine in our hands. Since he was running a low-grade fever, the doctor prescribed an antibiotic in addition to the drops, which is Trey’s preferred medicine at this time. He will gladly take the pink bubblegum antibiotic and ask for more, but the second he spies the eye drops in my hand, the world explodes.
Thankfully, my sister is a three-time birther of two boys and one girl, and is a veritable font of ever-flowing information when it comes to tips and tricks concerning parenting. Both of her boys have had their bouts with pink eye, and she too experienced the righteous indignation of a toddler refusing to allow you access to drip burning liquid fire into his eyes. Much to my delight, she was able to arm me with Parenting Trickery and I’ve successfully administered two doses of the drops to Trey’s eyes with little to no difficulty. The first dose, last night before I’d spoken with my sister, was an education in the unimaginable and Hulk-like strength of a toddler’s arms when they’re covering his eyes in an effort to prevent you access to them. The two doses today, however, were much easier. The trick was simple: have Trey lie down and show him the bottle of drops and, when he then protests, tell him to shut his eyes tight to keep the medicine out. After that, it’s a simple matter of squirting two drops in the corner of his eye, which then roll into the eyeball when he opens his eyelid. Parenting, I have come to learn, is a delicate balance of trickery and deception…
His eye is already almost entirely cleared up, although we must continue the drops and antibiotic for several more days. He’s already milking his ailment for all it’s worth, though. Last night after the doctor’s visit, we took him to the toy store and assuaged our guilt by buying him a new toy and a Spider-Man shirt. Usually, trips to the toy store end in tears as we rip Trey from the rapturous joy of the Thomas The Train Table, so this time we went to a megastore, instead. No, we did not go to Wal-Mart. We went one step down on the evil corporate ladder and headed to Target. Don’t judge me.
Trey likes to ride in the buggy, although not in the designated toddler riding area. No, he prefers the large part of the basket, where the groceries and products are supposed to go. However, since we’re usually only ever running to the store for a few small things, it’s never much of a problem. At Target last night, for example, we found his toy and shirt fairly quickly, then spent the rest of the time wheeling through the store while Brittany shopped. It was uneventful and fun, although I did keep a watchful eye on him due to a curious event that took place earlier last week.
I’d taken him with me to the grocery store to pick up a few items with which to restock the dwindling supplies of Mom-approved and Toddler-accepted snack foods in our household larder. Some fruit snacks here, a few chips there, and we were all done. However, I made the mistake of pushing the buggy down the magazine aisle. Trey, his Mickey and Spider-Man radar working overtime, immediately spied the latest issue of Wizard magazine. The issue details Disney buying Marvel Comics and so has on its cover three superheroes wearing various Disney costumes. The Incredible Hulk has on Mickey Ears, for example, and Spider-Man is wearing a Buzz Lightyear helmet. My favorite, however, is the Donald Duck sailor-suited Wolverine. Upon spying the magazine, Trey immediately asked me to hand it over because he wanted to “weed it, Kwis!” Seeing no harm in letting him flip through the pages whilst I loaded up the cart, I grabbed a copy off the shelf and gave it to him. He spent the rest of the shopping trip sitting in the large part of the buggy, happy and contented, pretending to read the magazine.
He was so quiet and happy, however, that he didn’t make a peep when I was proceeding through the self check-out station. I scanned the fruit snacks, and he stayed quiet. I scanned the chips, and he remained mute. I scanned and I scanned, then I swiped my card and I paid, and all the while he sat quietly in the cart, drawing no attention to himself whatsoever. I loaded the bags into the little section of the cart that Trey was not in, then grabbed my receipt and headed out the automatic doors, down the handicap-accessible ramp and onward to my car. I opened the truck and unloaded the groceries, then I pushed the buggy over to the passenger side and picked up Trey. As I held him suspended halfway betwixt the buggy and his car seat, he began shouting. “Wait, Daddy Kwis! My book! My book!”
I sat him down in his seat, then turned my attention back to the buggy. There, in the bottom of the basket, was the previously forgotten issue of Wizard magazine. I’d completely lost track of it during the shopping and, because Trey was so quiet the whole time, I hadn’t thought of it since I’d handed it to him. I turned and buckled him up, then picked up the magazine. I briefly thought about returning it to the store, but that would have involved unbuckling Trey and putting him back in the basket, then returning to the store to fess up to the crime. I was not prepared for that.
Instead, I grabbed the book and, like a paranoid criminal, thrust it into his hands and quickly closed the door. As I returned the cart to the little parking lot docking station, my eyes scanned the horizon like a nervous forest creature waiting for death to pounce from above with a piercing shriek and a bloodied claw. I climbed into the car, started the engine, and as inconspicuously as possible, backed out of the parking space. I drove slowly out of the parking lot, guilt weighing on my conscience as I pulled out and onto the road. On the ride home, I contemplated my future behind bars as punishment for the unlawful acquisition of a glossy-paged magazine, but eventually decided that I was being ridiculous. After all, I’d never taken advantage of the store’s gasoline credit for all of my shopping dollars, so in some sense it was like they owed me, right? Right?
Ok, so I confess. I did it. I stole the magazine, but not willingly. I was an unwitting victim of Trey’s mastermind plan to enter the grocery store and abscond with its merchandise. I didn’t know what I’d done until after it happened, which makes me an accessory after the fact, at best. I’m hoping for a reduced sentence, if it comes to that. Maybe go state’s evidence and rat Trey out to the coppers, enter witness relocation and spend the rest of my days in Topeka, Kansas as a balding pharmaceutical rep named Marney. It could work.
Then again, maybe I’ll just sneak the magazine back into the store and casually stick the accursed periodical back on the shelf from whence it came…
Want some books? 'Course ya do!
NOTE: I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.
I'll take care of it.
Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers
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Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?
Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?
If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.
You're welcome.
Short Stories
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The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.
Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.
Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.
Always get back up.
Gaming | Nonfiction
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This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.
The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.
Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.
If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.
I'll try to not be boring.
Horror
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What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.
What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.
You've been warned.
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