On Riverside Drive

A good night's sleep lies beneath the sheets

You'll notice over the coming weeks and months that there is no real pattern to this column. Some days I decide to impart my wisdom about the stock market, other days I recap the week in sports, and yet others, I share stories about my friend Diane just to make me feel smarter. Occasionally you'll have to bear with me as I vent about my children, or my husband, and every so often (bi-weekly) you'll hear me harp about my weight. But, of all the topics, there is one that seems to get the most response - my parents. Perhaps it's because we all have them. Though, I think it's more along the lines that if we had the choice, we'd forgo introducing them at a gala function.

This week, it's my mom's turn.

I recently visited her in Phoenix when we got to talking about her health. (This, too, is a common thread here, my parents and their health; their incessant need to talk about the pills their taking, and their dinner conversation impulse to interject their blood pressure readings.)

During lunch on this day my mother says, "You know, the strangest thing is happening. I never told you this because I didn't want you to write about it. But, about five months ago, I started waking up with these horrible leg cramps."

"Here we go again," I thought.

"I went to the doctor, and he said I needed to take more calcium, get more exercise or some other silly remedy like that. It never works, ya know. I've tried them all."

She continued. "So, I was talking to your grandmother and telling her of my nightly leg cramps, and Grandma says, 'Oh yes, the leg cramps. I used to get them too, until I started putting soap in my bed.'"

Coffee came out my nose.

"Don't laugh," she says. "I'm serious."

"I'm not laughing. Why would you think I thought that was funny? Heaven's no! I'm sure people do it all the time, you know, put soap in their bed. Not weird at all. That was just a little tickle in my throat."

"Well," she went on, "Grandma said that if I put a bar of soap under my bottom sheet, and placed it right between my calves, that the leg cramps would go away."

"Of course they would! Why wouldn't they?" I concurred.

"But, there's a rule! It cannot be Dial soap. Dial soap doesn't work. I'm not sure why, it just doesn't. All the other soaps get the green light, but Grandma says to stay away from Dial."

I got the tickle again, but I played along. "So is it working?" I asked.

"Yes! For five months, no leg cramps! Every once in awhile I'll get a little tweak in the middle of night, but, do you know what I do then?"

"Start exercising?" I asked.

"Nope. I change the soap!"

I can usually go along with the occasional crazy story - a Ouija board gone wild, a ghost in the attic, or psychic Gary Spivey talking to the 'other side', but curing leg cramps with a bar of soap? I think my mother had taken the power of suggestion a little too far, yet, I had no way to prove it.

Then, the next morning, my daughter says to me, "Mom, the weirdest thing happened yesterday. I was watching T.V. on Grandma's bed when I felt something. It was a bump, like the 'Princess and the Pea' story. You won't believe this - Grandma had a bar of soap under her sheets!"

"Oh no!" I said. "You didn't touch it did you?"

"Ya," she answered. "I took it out and put it back in your shower. Why?"

I didn't say a word, but ran and got the bar of soap, and put it back under my mother's mattress pad like nothing had happened.

The next morning, my mother comes into the kitchen for breakfast and says, "You won't believe this, but for the last two nights I've had such horrible leg cramps again. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I went to change the soap. Guess what? Somehow my bar of soap ended up under the mattress pad!"

"Wow. That is weird. Five months no cramps, and then somehow, the last two nights, leg cramps again?"

I didn't know if I should tell her. There's nothing more humbling than validating an off-kilter parent.

My daughter chimed in, "I'm sorry, Grandma, I took your soap out. I didn't know. I was trying to help you."

"Oh, honey, that's okay. I'm glad to hear it, because did you know that…."

For the next hour I got to hear the reasoning behind why it's important to only put the bar of soap under the bottom sheet and not under the mattress pad like I so foolishly did. It's a difference of a night's sleep, or so I'm told.

Now you can understand why the stories about my parents get the most response. Lord, help me.