Skin Care

Here's a five-minute health tip from my wife, Dr. Whiski Rae Shamrock, the noted proctodermatologist and lyric poet:

Gentle friends,

Ever wonder what to do about those pesky carbuncles that pop up in the most embarrassing places at the most inconvenient times? Back when I was working my way through Tulane University as a pole dancer and palmist for an illegal riverboat casino, I suffered from contact dermatitis I developed through an allergy to the nickel alloy that sheathed the poles. An older dancer who went by the name of "Gator Ethel" tipped me off to a home remedy she swore cured her of skin ailments of all sorts, from venereal warts to rashes to psoriasis to dermatitis to carbuncles. "You name it, it works," was Gator Ethel's motto for matters both dermatologic and otherwise. I first met the old bawd when I was a young dancer who compensated for my shyness in stripping by working the pole energetically—too energetically, as it turned out.

"You rubben that nutria pelt of yores too rough on that ol' pole," the Cajun maven observed. "You get youself too sore, cher, you gonna break out first in a rash, and then them carbunklies will sprout and my, my but them devils hurts like sin. Here's a secret for you: find some screech owl eggs right before them babies hatch, crack th' shells open and make a paste outta them little fledglies by mixen them up in a bowl of crawfish etouffee that's been boilen in a cast iron pot over a wood fire for a day an' a night. Then let th' mixture cool off and pour enough heavy cream into it to whiten it up good, add a little corn starch to bind it together, and go to a graveyard at night. Find a grave of a dead baby and lie down onto it for th' night and smear all's your sores and rashes with th' paste. Rise up at dawn and say th' Lord's prayer over th' grave and walk home backwards. Once you back in you own house, take a long bath. Stay naked th' remainder of th' day an' eschew copulation. Repeat this treatment every-other night for a week an' then you cured. See my skin, how clear it look and I'm almost 40? I weren't born wi' this good skin, I earned it. You remember this, cher. You looken like me when you old. That's th' Gator Ethel way, th' Cajun way, th' swamp way.

"Another remedy is to use that Dove soap an' hydrocortisone cream you gets from Wal-mart. That works as well about as th' treatment above. It's definitely th' choice of screech owls everywhere."

Next week's skin care tip will tell you how to keep your hands soft and supple even if you sift through gravel for a living.

Yours for the biggest organ of the body,

Whiski Rae