Christmas is a Gas
To this day I'm not really sure where it came from, or why, but it was primarily a Christmas stocking thing: in addition to the typical chocolates and candies, every year my Christmas stocking was always supplemented by an assortment of toiletries: a new toothbrush, maybe a small bottle of cologne or aftershave, some deodorant perhaps . . . and, without fail, The Bowel Product.
Did everybody's mother do this at one point? Decide their children were lactose intolerant?
There seemed to be some definite evolving trends to it, starting with about four years worth of lactase pills. Perhaps it was because I drank milk by the gallon for most of my teenage years, and sort of got burned out on it around age 17 or so and lowered my average milk intake— I don't know — but to my mom, something must have spelled, "Milk gives Matt the runs," one way or another.
Over the next couple of years after that came the Gas-Ex. And the Beano. And the anti-diarrheal.
If I had some kind of gas issue, I wasn't aware of it. Maybe that was the issue. But I really don't think so.
And worse, since I knew that stuff is expensive, I never threw it out. Ever. Years upon years of pills to keep my intestines in working order, stuffed into a box in the bathroom cabinet — all on the principle that some day, perhaps soon, I was going to be rocked by a marathon thirty day bout of the runny poops.
It's going to happen one day, I swear.
But until then, I don't think I've ever taken a single one of those pills, and by now I'm sure they're so far past their expiry date, they're more likely to cause an intestinal dysfunction than to cure one.
Did everybody's mother do this at one point? Decide their children were lactose intolerant?
There seemed to be some definite evolving trends to it, starting with about four years worth of lactase pills. Perhaps it was because I drank milk by the gallon for most of my teenage years, and sort of got burned out on it around age 17 or so and lowered my average milk intake— I don't know — but to my mom, something must have spelled, "Milk gives Matt the runs," one way or another.
Over the next couple of years after that came the Gas-Ex. And the Beano. And the anti-diarrheal.
If I had some kind of gas issue, I wasn't aware of it. Maybe that was the issue. But I really don't think so.
And worse, since I knew that stuff is expensive, I never threw it out. Ever. Years upon years of pills to keep my intestines in working order, stuffed into a box in the bathroom cabinet — all on the principle that some day, perhaps soon, I was going to be rocked by a marathon thirty day bout of the runny poops.
It's going to happen one day, I swear.
But until then, I don't think I've ever taken a single one of those pills, and by now I'm sure they're so far past their expiry date, they're more likely to cause an intestinal dysfunction than to cure one.