Household Item Might Get My Vote

There’s been much to ponder lately. The presidential race is heating up. Iran is misbehaving again. Gas prices have soared so much that I am considering dusting off my bicycle in the middle of winter. Steroids are ruining sports and Hollywood can’t seem to think up anything funny since the writers went on strike.

All these issues dominate American thought. Yet my reflections this past week have been centered upon . . . baking soda. Or bacon soda, as I used to call it when I was too young to know better. One taste and I knew right away it wasn’t pork-related.

A box of it appeared next to the sink in my bathroom recently. I examined it for the picture of a guy flexing his muscles while clutching a tool of destruction. Then I remembered we buy the generic brands. I grabbed the box and read a partial list of means by which baking soda can be made to feel useful. And after some further research, it became obvious that, unlike me, baking soda is capable of multi-tasking.

You can use it to clean your oven, your kitty litter box, the corrosion on your car battery, or the stains on your teeth. Just don’t use the same brush in each instance.

Baking soda heals diaper rash. Use it to relieve pain and itching associated with poison ivy, sunburn, bee stings, bug bites, measles, and chicken pox. It will soften your skin if you dare take a bath with it. It is also effective as pet shampoo. And human shampoo for that matter, because it removes buildup (whatever that is) from your scalp.

There’s more. Use it to rid baby bottles of sour milk smell or gargle with it as mouthwash to remove the odiferous stench of assorted food particles impacted among the gaps in your teeth.

If rain is predicted, slap a baking soda solution on your windshield and watch it repel water. Who needs windshield wipers? When mixed with salt, it will also repel insects such as ants as they attempt to enter your house through various cracks and crevices. If you prefer instead to eat insects as they do in some countries, simply soak the dead critters in baking soda before cooking to give them a sweeter, mushroom-like taste. (I’m not making this up.)

Baking soda is particularly effective against strong odors such as wet dog hair, spoiled food in the refrigerator, burnt casserole in the oven, and even human underarms that insist on sweating profusely. You can use it to unclog drains, put out fires, and to concoct homemade Play-Doh.

Combine it with other acidic elements and enjoy witnessing numerous chemical reactions whose combinations have been declared illegal in most conservative states and even a few liberal ones.

Swallow it to relieve acid indigestion, heartburn, and the intestinal reaction produced when one has partaken of an abundance of beans, if you know what I mean. (Again, I’m not making this up.)

I could go on but I’ll spare you. Trust me. Baking soda has thousands of possibilities. If only one of the current presidential candidates proved they were capable of accomplishing half as much as a small rectangular box of baking soda, they’d have my vote. And the whole political scene would smell better, too.