ABOI: What the hell's in Tiger Balm?

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Antwort in : /JUNK
Absender   : warner@wsunix.wsu.edu  (Michael Warner)
Betreff    : ABOI: What the hell's in Tiger Balm?
Datum      : Di 22.10.96, 06:01  (erhalten: 27.10.96)
Groesse    : 3225 Bytes
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 96 12:21:00 GMT
From: James Follett <james@marage.demon.co.uk>
Subject: What the hell's in Tiger Balm?

My first experience of this evil, allegedly Chinese, remedy
goes back to when my dear wife, whose name escapes me for the
moment, was suffering severe back pains. One night, when she
couldn't sleep, I suggested that she try some Super Tiger Balm
that we had bought in a Hong Kong quack medicine shop. Full
strength stuff with such a pungent, pervading odour that it was
necessary to keep the tin inside another tin.

I rubbed some of this wicked concoction on her back. My God,
did it stink the bedroom out. Eventually we went to sleep. I
woke about an hour later and went for a pee. I returned to bed
and a few minutes later became aware of an intense burning
sensation.I tried to ignore it but it got steadily worse. I went
into the bathroom and tried washing the offending part but that
only seemed to spread the stuff around.

By now I was in agony. I swear that everything was
actually glowing in the dark. I decided that complete immersion
of injured area in warm water was the only cure. The question
was how. Being a resourceful bloke, I filled the washbasin to
the brim and, with one knee on edge of bath and hanging onto
the basin's mixertap for stability, I managed to lower
burning tackle into the warm water. Bliss! It was while I was
perched thus that I slipped and added further injuries to the
already heat-damaged tissue. I managed to re-establish
blissful immersion but the noise woke my dear wife who entered
the bathroom. Being a woman and imbued with more than her fair
share of women's curiousity, she demanded to know what I was
doing and why was I doing it without her. I explained my
misadventure with the tiger balm whereupon she seemed to be
seized by a sudden asthma attack that led to her rolling around
on the floor with tears streaming down her cheeks.

`Vinegar!' she declared and disappeared downstairs leaving
me wondering if I was the owner of 50ps worth of French fries
straight out of the fryer. Well it certainly felt like it. By
the time she returned I was convinced I was on the brink of a
Three Mile Island meltdown, but her careful pouring of vinegar
stopped the fuel rod going critical. The trouble was that the
agony returned whenever she stopped pouring. A quick rummage in a
drawer produced an old bowtie which she soaked in the vinegar
and tied in place, with a rather neat bow. Peace returned to
our household.

So what the hell is in Tiger Balm? Come to think of it, what
the devil is in vinegar?

Jim

PS: Of course, I swore my wife to secrecy but somehow the story
got out even though there were no other witnesses apart from
the cats, Dylan and Thomas, who were threatened with dropping
from a tall building with a barometer tied to them if they blabbed.
Since then the story of my wearing of a bowtie has become a standing
joke -- if you'll pardon the expression.