God Damn My Critical Thinking Skills!

HOME!   And it is wonderful. It's strange coming home to an empty house, but I rolled in at oh-dark-thirty, and didn't pick up my boy at his aunt's, so I woke to an empty house, and took immediate advantage of the solitude by eating breakfast over the sink in only my underwear while watching Fox News on mute with Ace Frehley's solo work on the speakers. And it was nice. Then I soaked my float coat (a winter coat that is also a life jacket) in Simple Green and disassembled the vacuum cleaner. My wife clogs the damn thing, and I have to periodically purge it. Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife has thick jet black hair that hangs 3/4 down her back. I swear to God she sheds. Every 3 months I pull out enough hair to weave a full set of placemats from the vacuum's innards.

I don't know why I'm sharing that. I have no tolerance for booze anymore, I guess.

       Being reunited with my boy was awesome. I picked him up from school, and when he shot out into the parking lot and saw my truck rather than his aunt's little minicar, he lit up like a Christmas tree. Big warm fuzzy all 'round.


I took the time to clean my truck and go for a quick 2 mile hike in the Blue Hills today. I fucking hate the Blue Hills. It's the largest tract of undeveloped land in eastern MA, but it's also the best homosexual meet-n-meat area in the Boston 'burbs, so there's always some friendly gentlemen about more than ready to strike up a polite conversation and engage in Desire Under The Elms, and while I don't begrudge anyone the opportunity to keep loneliness at bay, I go to the woods to get away from strangers, not get blown by them.  But I got my walk in, and tripped over a root and wrenched my already funged-up hip, causing some aggravation to my foul-weather gimp.

       Fast forward to tonight... my boy and I celebrated with dinner at a restaurant, and on the way back I stopped at a CVS and among other sundries I bought a 5-lb bag of aromatherapy-grade epsom salts. After we watched some cartoons and a little 'Duck Dynasty' he knocked off and I dropped a bunch of salt in the bath.


        So I'm sitting in the bath- I brought 2 strong beers in with me- and I'm sitting and smelling the eucalyptus smell from the salt for about 5 minutes, then it's gone, and it's gone gone, not like I habituated to the smell, it's gone. I can feel the nice emollient slickness of skin on skin when I rub my feet together, and then it hits me: this is more snake oil bullshit.


        All the Rescue Remedy, Homeopathic, Allopathic and Complementary medicine you may encounter is unified by one thing- it works only via the Placebo effect. I don't know why I didn't make that connection between Epsom salts and aches- Epsom salts isn't magic. It's magnesium sulfate, and wonderful medication that is only effective in heroic doses taken internally... as a laxative, not as a muscle relaxant.
    Well fuck, what's the point? I just wasted $4.99 and I'm pissed because I had a blind spot to a perfect example of snake oil being sold as medicine and I just caught it now here at the ass-end of my 38th year. It's a fucking placebo. All epsom salts can do is make a hypotonic solution that alters the diffusion pattern locally in my epidermis. That's it. Well, that and create a nice emollient feeling on my skin while it's wet. It doesn't do anything else. More importantly, it doesn't have magical properties, just like all the amazingly well-packaged over the counter bullshit people buy in lieu of burnt offerings to baal. I got suckered for Fi' bucks, and it was a cheap lesson at the cost.
 Next time I'm taking the Fi' bucks and buying a box o' wine to brink with me into the tub to treat my sore hip. That shit's like 40% rubbing alcohol, and that has documented medicinal properties, unlike goddamn throwing a bunch of pool chemicals in my bath.
...and this makes me sad because having had my blinders ripped off by reality, I can no longer rely on magic to make my sore leg feel better. I have to rely on a 6-pack of Bud Light Platinum. If you're aware that feel-good non-FDA-approved claims to health are full of shit, the Placebo effect is also null and void. 

 Screw it. I'm a go watch some more Duck Dynasty. Goddamn if my skin doesn't feel silky smooth though, from the 3lbs of salt I dumped in the tub.