Today’s rant is about the wussification of over the counter medication. Except for medical marijuana which, holy smokes, I don’t think can get much stronger without being run through Keith Richard’s liver.

The other day I had to give my 3 year old some liquid children’s Tylenol and it was like giving a pill to a feral cat. He screamed, he kicked, he whipped the little syringe thing across the room. And I had no sympathy. You see I had tasted it, and it tasted like candy. My kid is a wimp; if he even smelled the medicines we had to gag down in the 70’s and 80’s, he’d drop dead on the spot.

Remember the cough syrups? Remember the dreaded yellow one? What the hell was in that stuff? Lye and abstinthe with some sour persimmon to help it go down? I mean, I remember being terrified if I was sick enough to warrant that vile stuff. You’d walk by your mom and cough once and she would shoot you a look that said it all; “Will yourself to get better or face the sauce”.

That Old Timey Taste!

But the yellow one paled in comparison to the green bastard. And I’m not talking Nyquil here. The “13th Step” tastes like you could put it on pancakes compared to the green prescription shit. I’ve known kids who were on death’s door who leapt out of bed and began mowing the lawn voluntarily as soon as their mom got home from the pharmacy and set the bottle on the counter. I’m not sure anyone ever took more than one dose of that junk. It wasn’t so much a cough suppressant as a whine suppressant. “No really *hack cough spew* I’m feeling SO much better now *hack spew* I think I’ll go for a walk…” The aftertaste has almost cleared my palate some 30 years later.

Of course we grew up hot on the heels of the “if you’re not bleeding from the eyes, you’re going to school” generation. At least we could stay home and watch a little Price is Right until the pneumonia passed.

In the seventies even cough drops we’re terrible. Honey-lemon or cherry, the little metal box would proudly lie to you. As soon as you opened it you would smell the horrible numbing agent. The best was combining the cough drops with that terrible green spray stuff. What the hell is up with the color green and medicine anyway? Just writing this is bring back all the horrible tastes and smells of my childhood illnesses.

So I don’t take crap from a kid who is fighting me over a teaspoon of grape soda. I’m half tempted to check the back of grandpa’s medicine chest to see if there isn’t a little green death no one tossed. Then we wouldn’t need to waste any more money on the “tussin” we’d just begin to open the bottle and miracle cures would abound.