Stoneage Pals

Due to my present, er, condition, there are a couple of weird habits I have to be keeping for the next few months. Twice a day I have to take liquid Zantac, and may I just say a nastier proposition I'd be hard pressed to find. I have to chew a couple of Tums in the morning and at night, this has become something of a treat for me, mainly because I'm eating all the red ones out of the bottle. Times are going to turn hard when all I'm left with are whites and yellows.

And then once every morning and every evening, I have to take a vitamin. Since I can't swallow a pill yet, I have to chew. Flintstones came highly recommended.

When I was a kid, we weren't really a vitamin family. We were more of a "clean your plate, there are starving children in China" family. But oooh, wasn't it exciting to go to a friend's house, you know, the "right" kind of family just like those on TV, where the kids didn't eat Cocoa Krispies for breakfast and sit in front of the TV all day long. At those houses, right there in the kitchen windowsill in a place of distinction sat the vitamins. In their glass jars with stopper tops. The bright yellow One-A-Day for the adults, and the multi-colored rocks known as Chocks for the kids. I always wanted to belong to a vitamin family. It just meant you were doing something right.

I thought Chocks were soooo cool. Until the day I tasted one. Then I decided I liked Chocks a lot better sitting on the windowsill looking important than in my mouth tasting like iron.

Somewhere later, probably after we were all way too old to chew our vitamins, came Flintstones vitamins. They were multi-colored and inviting too, which I'm completely convinced had to do with the whole glass jar thing. Any pill in a clear glass jar looks inviting to me. Anyway, the Flintstones had arrived on the market to wipe out Chocks with their Barneys and Bettys and BamBams. And apparently, they did, because, well, do you see any Chocks out there on the shelves?

So anyway, I grew up to be a very half-hearted vitamin taker. I always have some on hand, but I only take them when I remember. I got the brilliant idea with the last bottle I bought to leave them at work. You know, I'm always at work, I'll go in and see them and always take my vitamins, right? Yeah, right. I've had the same bottle sitting there for 3 months and they're barely half gone.

But that has to change now. I have to vitamin myself every day from now on. The nurse told me I'd have to find a sure-fire reminder. She said what's the first thing you reach for when you wake up? I replied my glasses. Well, put them right beside your glasses, then, so you'll see them first thing. You mean, put vitamins under my pillow? That's where I keep my glasses. We eventually decided upon "beside the alarm clock."

But until that day comes, I bought myself a bottle of Flintstone vitamins and prepared to take a blast back into my childhood. They're not quite as bad as I remember Chocks tasting, but then again, I've been drinking liquid Zantac, too.

And of course, pod that I am, I have to go in and individually inspect and pick my vitamins to match my personality for the day. And up till now, I can tell you I've eaten every Flintstone except Fred. Fred! The most important Flintstone of all, and I've yet to find him in my bottle.

However, I have inspected, and subsequently eaten, BamBam, posing with his stick, Barney, looking every inch Barney, Betty, standing in a very sassy pose with arms akimbo, Pebbles, wearing something of a very low-rider diapie, Wilma, with her swirly hair, and Dino. Now, one morning I picked out a grape shape I couldn't place right off, and got to looking at it closely: it was the Great Gazoo! There's a Great Gazoo in the bottle!

And yet, no Fred.

By the way, Wilma is by far the nastiest tasting of all the Flintstones. BamBam is by far the best. But give me a good red Tums any day.