The Ginger People

Before it left their system entirely, the illness that buggered up my girls over the weekend shared one of its remaining embers with me. It’s basically a cold with heavy nausea.

Anyone who knows me knows that I could be fully engulfed in flames and won’t complain, but I tend to go fetal at the first flash of feeling nauseous.

I also don’t like taking anything too scientific during the day because, quite frankly, I’ve got shit to do. I can’t be hanging ten out in space and time. So I considered what my ancestral elders would do – at least for the tummy bubbles – and all signs and patterns in the stars led to ginger.

Needing some things for dinner, at least for the girls, I decided to head to Whole Foods.

Whole Foods, dear reader, is a fantastic collection of food stuffs, yuppy stuffs, and homeopathic concoctions – but is notably a rollicking cluster fuck from when they open until they close. I love shopping there, but you need to have your head on straight or you’re going to get rolled over.

Even with a lot of folks ordering online, the store foragers fulfilling those orders are ravenous at best and make the whole experience a challenge.

Anyway..

I decided what I would make the girls for dinner in the moment, and made my way to the back of the store where they keep the feel-good things while I gathered my ingredients.

As if by divine intervention there was a store clerk there and I asked her where I could find the ginger. I didn’t want to scan the myriad items and I figured she would have the inside track on the good stuff.

But, instead, she asked me if I was sick. I wasn’t prepared to be interrogated and – as if talking to a dear friend whom I wouldn’t mind sharing my secrets with – blurted out that I was nauseous.

As I felt the wave of anxiety and disappointment wash over me, I watched the bomb go off behind her eyes as she stepped back from me and asked me why I wasn’t wearing a mask.

Anyone paying attention to my antics and convictions through the pandemic knows I’m a flag-waving supporter of mask-wearing. But here I was, maskless and – technically in the wrong. So, I mustered up some arrogance and asked her where hers was..

The next minute, in silence, was hell.

She made her stand and I met her on the hill she decided to die on. She wasn’t expecting my response just as much as I wasn’t expecting to respond that way. But, in fairness, I feel like shit so I’m admittedly bound to make some bad decisions.

But at least now we had common ground.

She adjusted herself while I came back from the little hole I was hiding in, in my mind, that the silence sent me running down. I hate it when things are too quiet.

As if inspired by some unseen spirit, she began her well-informed diatribe on the various types of ginger-based remedies that were available. As she got into her groove and loosened up a bit, I started nodding to indicate that I was picking up what she was putting down. Our tet-a-tet had resolved itself and we were on our way to resolution.

While she was describing to me the fourth option I had to help me get rid of my tummy troubles, I saw a familiar face on a paper package. Based on its location on the shelves, I’m not sure why she didn’t start there. But I wasn’t about to undo all the work we’d done to get over our issues and come together on this.

‘The Ginger People’ candies have long been a friend of mine on the trail, out on bail, and whenever I wanted to experience the perfect balance between sweet and burning that raw, sugar-coated, candied ginger provides. I’ve never once used them to solve a medical issue.

Of course. What a lightbulb moment. So bright and encompassing. I interrupted my former enemy-turned-ally and exclaimed how – what I can only assume was going to be her fifth option for me – was the ticket.

24 dissolvable tablets that “promote digestive health, relieve motion sickness and nausea, ease gas, and indigestion” and, have an active ginger rating of 6, which, according to the bright blue colored scale on the box, is the highest rating.

She let out an audible sigh; I offered up an uncomfortable giggle. And that was that. She was on her way with her day and I with mine. Back to being perfect strangers.

While checking out, a familiar-looking little boy was staring at me with such conviction that I swore I was going to have to start paying child support. But his mother was someone I’d never seen in this life, so I checked out and moved on. I made sure to place the eggs on top but was still miffed that I was forced into a dozen instead of an 18-pack, which is the real grand slam deal on eggs in Whole Foods.

I digress…

In the parking lot, once I got into the truck, I hunted through my bag for my little spicy remedy. I popped open the package with an overabundance of care, as if this was some great treasure, and ate two of the little tan tablets. They burned like hell and made my eyes water. Which was an awesome byproduct as my left contact was a little dry.

Within minutes I felt fine. I felt better than fine, in fact. I felt inspired, and that inspiration has led to this moment in time where I threw all these words together, while parked in front of the girls’ school, waiting to pick them up.

Yes, the cold-like symptoms are still dancing around inside my insides, but the nausea has subsided for the time being. As I told you earlier, I can take on the sniffles and a dry cough. I could easily employ the “it’s that time of year” excuse while I suckle on a cough drop and smile. But the second something makes me feel like something is coming up and out, I shut down like anyone else who’s got the kind of social hang-ups I do.