Just Ask My Arm

Woah. I just got home from my appointment with the Naturopath, and I wasn't terribly far off when I was poking fun at this yesterday. I feel like I just traveled backwards in time to about 1800-something, like I might walk out of the office and find that my Acura had been transformed into a horse and that, instead of stopping by Walmart on the way home for dinner, I would have to hit the back 40 and milk some cows before suppertime.

I know there are many of you who are not new to this way of thinking, so this won't come as a surprise to you. But for those of you die-hard pharmaceutical consumers, get this: I actually came home with a little blue bottle with a dropper in it, just like Laura Ingalls. With a hand-written label. And the word "remedy" on it. I was given this bottle after an hour and a half of answering questions with my arm muscles, as opposed to my vocal chords. And by that, I mean she would ask me questions and then touch my arm; if it moved just a tiny bit, my answer was "no". If it moved noticeably, my answer was "yes". For real.

The walls were lined with little hand-labeled vials and the first thing she told me was that I probably want to stay away from storing food in plastic containers, what with my family history of cancer and all. She was talking to me as if I even remotely understood her, but I set her straight right away. As soon as I asked her what in the world I would store food in, if I threw out my several thousand dollars worth of original Tupperware, I think she could see just how far down the other side of the spectrum I actually am.

But it appeared that I was no real challenge for her, and I started to relax. I thought, I must not be the worst she's seen. I must not be the only person who has come in here, completely oblivious to the fact that there are mercury fillings in my mouth that could, potentially, contribute to my death. And once we got into the muscle-as-voice thing, I was very intrigued. I kept trying to "figure out the trick", as if I were watching a magician. How does she get my arm to move like that? She's asking for information from the bottles on the wall, and my arm is answering her. She asked the wall, "Is there anything here I've missed?" And my arm answered "no." Seriously, I couldn't make this up.

She made a remedy for me that seemed to cover every possible ailment I might suffer now, or have every suffered in the past, from low self-esteem to an overwhelming desire to take a vacation by myself (no joke, there's actually an herb for that). I'm supposed to take it three times a day and within two weeks (probably much sooner, she told me) I am going to feel balanced and grounded and motivated again.

So you probably think I walked out of there hoping she hadn't cast any spells on me, fearing that I would turn into a frog on the way home. But I didn't. I was completely fascinated by the entire thing, and set my little blue bottle carefully on my console as I drove away. In my car.

I'll keep you posted....