2090 Nanny No No

I mentioned recently about how my closest exposure to a nanny was watching the movie Mary Poppins. It didn't turn out well. For one thing, remember that famous song of hers? "A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down." 

At the time, it sounded like good advice, what with the taste of castor oil and such. But it's a recommendation not much accepted today, as too much sugar causes various diabetes and heart disease problems. A spoonful of sugar is not the sort of thing you'd want to take with your Lipitor. 

I remember another piece of advice from those days. My mom would say, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." (Some of her relatives chose to follow that advice by employing hard cider but that's another story.)

Unfortunately, the phrase painted the doctor as some sort of bogeyman, and going to the doctor as a scary thing, liable to end you up with stitches from when you went running with scissors, or a cast from when you'll break your leg climbing that tree, or a patch for your eye when you poked it out with that stick. 

We didn't have a nanny, but they still seemed cool thanks to Mary Poppins, sugar with medicine and all. And who wouldn't want to sweep a chimney or fly with an umbrella. 

I tried flying with an umbrella. In Southern California where we lived, the Santa Ana winds could get up to near hurricane force. At least to a 75-pound kid on top of a roof with a souvenir Disney Mary Poppins umbrella.

Fortunately, our house was a one-story rambler. When she got home from work my mom wondered why I was eating an apple. 

And what the hell happened to her umbrella.

America, ya gotta love it.