Anyway, one positive side effect about me battling it out with this cold is that I learned something interesting today about gypsies. Yes, really. In my world, any straightforward task can become a needlessly circuitous path to random cultural insights.
It all started when I realized I was out of decongestant. Which is sort of a big deal, because these days without my daily patented drug cocktail of pseudoephedrine, two antihistamines, a nasal steroid, my NetiPot, an inhaler and a yummy gummy vitamin chew, I sort of can’t breathe, and some might say that breathing is sort of important for not dying.
So anyway, I sat anxiously for a couple of minutes, paralyzed with fear because in order to restock my decongestant supply I would have to go outside, but I can’t go outside because the crazy pollen will exacerbate my allergy symptoms so that I’m worse off than if I simply stayed inside without more medicine.
This happens to me a lot -- like when I lost my cell phone a while back and then couldn’t call Verizon to get a new phone because I didn’t have a phone. Or when I used to wear coke-bottle glasses and would never be able to find them in the mornings because I didn’t have glasses on. Or when I drove my car out to a bar one night and then forgot where it was the next morning because I wasn’t trashed anymore.
I decided that I would fashion myself a rudimentary shroud to cover my face and hair like Michael Jackson’s kids back in the day or a vision of the Virgin Mary about to appear in a tortilla in Guatemala. Thusly covered, I might be able to survive the quick dash to the CVS around the block and be able to get my medicine.
Anyway, I figured while I was out I might pick up some more illness-related supplies. I’m tired of having to take meds all the time because it really dries out my mouth. I always feel like I’ve been sucking on some sponges.
Then I remembered that over the summer in some granola organic-type store I had seen an herbal remedy called Gypsy’s Cure or something…something similar to those Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges – it had struck me as a strange branding choice at the time because just earlier that day I’d learned from one of my more politically-correct friends that I should describe my lifestyle to others who I meet on my travels as “nomadic,” “wanderlusty” or “upscale hobo” rather than as “gypsy.”
I really wanted to find out the name of that remedy and to pick it up on my next venture outdoors. So I typed in “Gypsy’s Cure” into Google.
“Did you mean Gypsy’s Curse?” Google enquired politely.
Well, that was definitely enough to get me sidetracked. Best. Unintended search results. Ever. Here’s a representative sample of the actual links to which I was directed:
1. Query: How to break a gypsy’s curse? Preface of question: “I accidentally ran over a gypsy's cat a week ago, and she cursed me....”
2. Synopsis of Gypsy's Curse on Yahoo! Movies: Four physically abnormal men befriend each other in a gym and one man, a deaf mute without legs, becomes involved in a tragic love affair.
3. Definition on urbandictionary.com: Male impotence; failure to achieve an erection. Classically blamed on a failure to buy pegs or lucky heather many years ago. Usage: “Sorry love, I've got the gypsy's curse. It's like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube."
Informative and enjoyable, but not helpful links. I went back to my original search results and scanned them hopefully.
Gypsy Magic: An Old Gypsy Cure for Nervousness. Valerian Wine. 2 handful valerian roots. 1 clove. 1 orange rind. 1 rosemary twig. 1 liter of dry white wine ...
Nope.
Dog lard is a old gypsy cure for a variety of ailments and is commonly sold by gypsies in Europe: "...If you smear it on your chest, it will cure asthma, ...
Hrmmm. Well at least now we're talking about upper respiratory, rather than psychosomatic, symptoms.
The most powerful Gypsy cure is a substance called coxai, or ghost vomit. According to Gypsy legends, Mamorio or "little grandmother" is a dirty, ...
Wait, grandmother is a dirty what?! I couldn’t resist and clicked.
Turns out there was no need for parental controls on the site at all. Rather, it was a very, very, very dry article on Gypsy Americans and their culture, including history, immigration waves and settlement patterns. Dry, dry, dry. The whole article had been sucking on some sponges.
But I did learn something very interesting. Something so interesting, in fact, that I’m not even going to bother to verify by primary or even secondary source, and just store it in my brain in with my other “if it’s on the internet it must be true” factoids:
Gypsy taboos separate Gypsies—each group of Gypsies—from non-Gypsies, and separate the contamination of the lower half of the adult Gypsy's body (especially the genitals and feet) from the purity of its upper half (especially the head and mouth). The waist divides an adult's body; in fact, the Romani word for waist, maskar, also means the spatial middle of anything. Since a Gypsy who becomes polluted can be expelled from the community, to avoid pollution, Gypsies try to avoid unpurified things that have touched a body's lower half. Accordingly, a Gypsy who touches his or her lower body should then wash his or her hands to purify them. Similarly, an object that feet have touched, such as shoes and floors, are impure and, by extension, things that touch the floor when someone drops them are impure as well. Gypsies mark the bottom end of bedcovers with a button or ribbon, to avoid accidentally putting the feet-end on their face.This new knowledge about gypsies opens up a whole new world of germophobia and compulsive disorders for me to explore. I’ve always been weird about feet, but only to the extent that I’m insanely terrified of other people’s feet and hypocritically cavalier about my own (you can’t be a toenail biter and not be a hypocrite of some sort).
In Thailand, for example, it was so annoying when I entered any store or house and I’d always be asked in a singsong voice to remove shoes, please. And if I was in a bad mood I would scowl and mutter in some undertone to myself that my feet are probably cleaner than your floor, lady, and then stubbornly refuse to remove them, instead preferring to stand outside in protest while I missed out on an amazing meal, or life-changing cultural immersion, or at least a chance to use a toilet before my kidneys exploded from all the coconut water I’d been drinking.
But back to the subject of gypsies, at least I’ve learned something interesting and will add “ribbons for marking all my bedcovers” to my shopping list of things I need to get next time I go outside.
As for that damn herbal remedy, I ended up finding it on drugstore.com. Typed in “gypsy” to the search bar and up it came under “Traditional Medicinals”: “Gypsy Cold Care Herbal Tea.”
Better yet, it’s on sale for 20% off and I’ve got some drugstore.com coupons on top of that.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment