Holly is suffering from the Dreaded Lurgi at the moment - or rather, as we established tonight after a trip to the doctor's - a cocktail of them and, in addition to the mountain of creams and potions we have been given for her, one of the things Dr C has suggested we do is to pour a few drops of warm olive oil in her lughole twice a day to deal with a horribly clogged-up with earwax ear.
As I was doing dripping oil into her ear tonight I had this huge rush of Deja Vu by proxy. I suddenly, for a moment, knew exactly what Holly was feeling, because I remember having the exact same thing done to me as a child when I had earache.
When I was a kid olive oil went in your ear. That's what it was for. The only place you could get olive oil was in the chemists. Small glass bottles full of this thin clear yellow stuff (none of your Premier Cru First Cold Pressing Virgin, dark-green sludge at the bottom, shake the bottle before use stuff, just industrially filtered yellow oil with a medical label). Merriol who is 11 years younger than me had never heard of the practice. Somewhere between me growing up and her growing up a decade later, olive oil had stopped being a medicine, and had become a food.
All I have to do is remember to pick up the right bottle and not fill Holly's ear full of salad dressing.
As I was doing dripping oil into her ear tonight I had this huge rush of Deja Vu by proxy. I suddenly, for a moment, knew exactly what Holly was feeling, because I remember having the exact same thing done to me as a child when I had earache.
When I was a kid olive oil went in your ear. That's what it was for. The only place you could get olive oil was in the chemists. Small glass bottles full of this thin clear yellow stuff (none of your Premier Cru First Cold Pressing Virgin, dark-green sludge at the bottom, shake the bottle before use stuff, just industrially filtered yellow oil with a medical label). Merriol who is 11 years younger than me had never heard of the practice. Somewhere between me growing up and her growing up a decade later, olive oil had stopped being a medicine, and had become a food.
All I have to do is remember to pick up the right bottle and not fill Holly's ear full of salad dressing.
1 comment:
Tyler stuck something in his ear once and got a terrible infection. His grandmother poured warm olive oil into his ear, and he said it was such profoundly wonderful relief - he just said "AAHHHHHH" for a really long time.
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