“YOU PICKED ORANGE” Chapter 33 by SSK
“Now, A Word About Sodium”
Quite a little bit of a long time ago, I read a story wherein, as a child, Ghandi, or Muhammed, or some kid named Moishe, lived in a tiny teeny wee little spot of a village, but they were fortunate enough to have a teacher who taught all things to all of the children in the village. (I suspect there were a few adults as well, hanging in the windows or listening at the door, taking notes.)
Time came for the teacher's birthday or Christmas or Channukah (that'd be Moishe) and one of these sterling students thought and thought and thought about what to get teacher.
New pencil? Nah.
Fruit basket? Couldn't afford it.
Snow tires? (In the Mid-East? What're you, crazy??)
Finally, the child decided that he (I just had to pick a pronoun, let's not get huffy, ladies) would walk, from their village aaaaaall the way to the ocean, where he would take sea water, let it dry and thus make a handful of salt.
Salt, in those halcyon days of bitter starvation, rampaging wild animals (ever seen “The Light and the Darkness”? True story. Two lions ate, like, 4,000 people until Val Kilmer showed up and made them stop it [I choose to think he merely asked them, politely, to cut it out) was in great demand. We're talking a severe lack of salt.
The child struggled and tromped and crawled back to his village, and presented the beloved teacher the handful of salt, saying, “This golden treasure is yours, from me.” And then he died. No, no, I kid, I kid because I love.
No, the teacher accepted the salt with grace and thankfulness (probably because the specialty of this village was baked dirt: these people were poor!) but took in the amazing gesture of the child, tromping all that long way to the ocean, and dehydrating sea water to come up with a handful of salt.
The child supposedly said, “But teacher, the gift was not the salt, the gift was the journey.”
Awwww. Yeah, I don't get it either.
Shmaltzy, yes? But, it was a story with salt in it, and I needed a story with salt in it. (You'd be astounded to realize how few stories have salt in them. And, while I don't do schmaltz all that often, sometimes it does have it's place.)
My point is: that tiny handful of salt? It was probably enough sodium to flavor any ONE modern American's diet for about six months. And in these modern times? People probably add that much salt in two days. Odds are, salt is one of the factors in my beloved's illness.
So, please remember: Stroke doesn't fuck around where salt is concerned. It'll kill ya.
And about that, I am not remotely joking.
Here endeth the lesson. 33