Smelling Good Gives You Cancer

There’s a lot of strange notions regarding health around here. I’ve already mentioned the prevalent idea that medicines are bad and that the key to being healthy is to think happy thoughts. Carmen, however, is expanding my understanding of just how many things I do on a regular basis that will, according to local custom, kill me.

First of all, I like hot water and choose to shower in it whenever I can. (By the way, I can do so on a fairly regular basis now because Ruyman got someone to teach him how to fix the water heater. He has to fight with it about twice a day, and he’s been zapped a couple of times, but he keeps at it because it keeps me from whimpering in the shower. Isn’t he a good husband?) Anyhow, in Tenerife, showering with cold water is believed to firm your skin and prolong your life, though I have to wonder how a long life’s worth living if you can’t enjoy a hot shower.

I also clean my ears with Q-tips. This will, of course, result in memory damage and dementia. It's sort of a cotton-swabbed brain scrambler.

Last but not least, I use deodorant. I’ve often wondered at the aroma wafting off people here. At first, I thought smelly folks were strategically placed in front of perfume stores as enticement to enter, but now I know there’s more to it than that.

Here’s the skinny on deodorant. According to local tradition, deodorant clogs the sweat glands (which makes sense) and causes fatty build-ups in your armpits (which does not). These fatty masses become tumors and these tumors become cancerous. Some people in the States who think along a similar vein rub crystals in their armpits. Here, they just lose their sense of smell.

So the secret to avoiding cancer and other illnesses isn’t to quit smoking, which I, as an unwilling breather of second hand smoke, would appreciate. It’s not even to eat vegetables and get regular exercise. No - if you want to live a long and healthy life, be cold, dripping with earwax, and smelly. Just be ready to spend that life by yourself.