I’ve been using the service again, and very good it was too.  Having spent all day with D&V, the fruit of my womb little Tiger Prejudice was blue lighted into ER as dehydrated as instant mash.  Three hours later and with a Tiger full of flat pop we all went home pleased as punch with letters of appreciation all round.

Apparently, the intervention in question is known as the “fluid challenge”, for which flat pop is the weapon of choice. In brief, every 10 minutes mum and dad administer 15 mill of flat pop through a syringe and into poor little Tiger P.  Keep it down and all is well.  Throw it up and IV fluids and a night in Peter Pan ward it is. We went through something similar many years before when the poor poppet got sick on our wee sojourn to Scotland and was prescribed a dose of flat Ironbru by a very helpful local GP. Many weeks later a phone call from the health protection agency informed us that he’d had salmonella poisoning that had been traced back to a tray of dodgy lettuce.  To this day I live with the guilt of forcing those tuna sandwiches down his poor little throat. 

Anyway, as luck would have it I got a tummy bug – presumably the same one - a few days later.  I even had a day off sick.  Worse still it was a Monday, so double points on your Bradford Score (Google it, dears, Google it).    And what did I turn to?  Flat pop, that’s what.  And did it work?  Too right it did.  24 hours later and I’m fitter that a butcher’s dog.

So what I want to know is why they don’t tell us about this flat pop thing up front.  At school, for example, or as part of your mandatory heath and safety training, or when you do your first aiding at brownies or guides or wherever it is your parents send you to get some peace and quiet on a Thursday night. My dad had another one about treating burns with cold tea:    I thought he was either mean or a bit thick and probably both, but I’m starting to think that he might have had a point.  And what’s more, having consulted at length with the pharmacy boys and girls, I think I might have found the answer to my financial problems,  as whichever way that you look at it cold tea and flat pop takes some beating on the price per litre front.

Now at risk of creating a shaman-fest and a deluge of old wives tales (like that nonsense about an apple a day keeping the doctor away, for example) are there any more for any more?  Our financial salvation could be at hand.