I have a sore throat...there I said it. That may not seem like much of an accomplishment but if you'd had grown up in my family you would realize the importance of admitting to such a minor ailment. You see growing up, my siblings and I were subjected to an assortment of home remedies and treatments that could be described as borderline torture at best. We learned at a young age to never admit to our father that we had a sore throat. Doing so would unleash the terror of the dreaded "THROAT MOP." I don't know if anyone outside of my family knows exactly what a throat mop is, but I'll explain. Brace yourself, it's going to get ugly. A throat mop is just that. A mop about the size of a tennis ball (at least that's how I remembered it) attached to the end of a thick wire handle. This contraption was shoved into the back of the throat to coat everything from the tip of the tongue to the vocal chords with some sort of unknown brown, oozing liquid. The recipe for this foul concoction was passed down from my Grandmother, so the exact ingredients are a mystery...thank God. I can only imagine that it must have been some combination of straight molasses and turpentine with maybe a shot of diesel thrown in. It's been 30 some odd years since I've had the "Throat Mop" and I can still taste it. Amazingly after just one treatment with the "Throat Mop", sore throats immediately cleared up. Not really, but noone was foolish enough to admit to needing further treatment. That must have been the whole idea. Bring out the "Throat Mop" and there's no need to go to the doctor. As I mentioned this recipe was passed down from my Grandmother. A no-nonsense woman of few words, so hopefully she didn't share this medical wisdom with anyone outside of the family. There's no way of knowing how she came up with it and I'm fairly sure nothing like this is commercially available. That's a good thing, because if the U-S Government ever gets it's hands on the blueprints for this kind of "treatment" Waterboarding would seem like a walk in the park.

My son complained to me the other day that he had a sore throat....I just laughed to myself as I went to the medicine cabinet to get him some Cepacal... He'll never experience the "joy" of lye soap either...

Do you have any memories of similar home remedies??? Please share. But if you have a recipe for a "Throat Mop", do the world a favor and keep it to yourself. Be blessed.