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Lyme Laundry Blog |
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Wednesday, July 20, 2005: The only things still on the list were the very-hard-to-get kind. If you know my household, you would know that (no offense to anyone) we do not own any T-shirts emblazoned with any sports icons [except for my Nike checkmark socks but those I only have because they were cute]. The teens needed a "wisconsin" T-shirt. I thought for a moment about my 79 year old neighbor who wears his proudly every day. Nope I thought, remembering that he was of little means, that it was tobacco stain laden and that he could probably not spare it anyway. A Rubber chicken. We actually have one of those. Our house has two of everything ever imagined under the sun. Neighbors have borrowed one thing or another over the years. We are the official house of widgets and thingamabobs. I mean things that nobody has been able to identify. And I live in a 100-year old house. Some of these things came with it, found down in the hole of the abandoned outdoor lavatory-turned woodshed off the back of our garage. Or found in other places, like the DeSoto hubcap that made a resounding "clank" when I struck the shovel into the backyard to plant my first shrub. Leave it to me to find the only spot on our 1/2 acre lawn that had buried treasure. Or the Jesus-head belt buckle I located when cleaning out the closet. Or the dime-sized depression era food token in the attic. Or the tin plate left in the attic that would have covered the chimney hole above an old iron stove. You catch my drift. I wondered if my 14-yr. old son would miss his rubber chicken....with my luck, probably, despite it not having seen the light of day for the past 12 years. He'd probably suddenly need it the following evening. Disposable camera, nope. 3-D glasses. Hey! I have a pair of those that I have never used. I excused myself and went about finding the treasured objects for my hopeful new friends. After about 2 minutes of searching for the chicken, I decided upon an old ugly rubber bat--hey it met the criteria (somewhat), it had wings, it flew, it was made of rubber. OK, so it wasn't a chicken, maybe they would accept it anyway. I remembered how those scavenger hunts went. Anything for a win. Then I located the 3-D glasses and handed them over to the grateful teens. Before they left, I also handed them my business card and information about lyme disease. "What's this?" they asked, perplexed. They hadn't counted on any extras. "Something you should be aware of." They looked at me like I was handing them literature on venereal disease. "Don't worry, just look it over" I said calmly. Amid the faint "ewwwws" as the kids were leaving, I heard a "ticks are cool" from one teen boy. OK one of them showed potential. Now you know the dangers of appearing on my doorstep. If you are not already part of our support group, you are going to be inundated with Lyme propaganda. The moral of my story today is that we can always take a moment of our time to reach out and educate others about Lyme. It can be as simple as a pamphlet to go with a rubber chicken. Or bat. Make that bat with glasses. Anyway, it costs us nothing to educate, but thousands to eradicate. Which would you rather spend? -PJ
In case you want to add your two cents worth!
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