The Croup and My Mother’s Chatelaine

I am repulsed by things I find repulsive, such as desiccated fruits, legumes, too, for that matter, dogs smaller than a cat, horsehair and too much white in my eggs. I dislike anything that comes in cellophane or has crimping round the edges, reused Popsicle sticks and too little yellow in my eggs. I dropped LSD once, more precisely someone dropped it on me. I have never eaten spirit-gum, betel-nuts or anything ensconced in puff-pastry, the kind one finds in your better delicatessens and biome stores. I have, however, read far too much Nietzsche, Popular Mechanics (old dog-eared back-issues and brand spanking new ones) and the Scout’s Manual I was given upon being beaten-in to the troop. I have been known to read, and often reread, folios (a book or manuscript in the largest size usual for books, traditionally created by folding a single sheet of standard-sized printing paper once, giving two leaves or four pages, a standard-sized sheet of printing paper folded once to give two leaves or four pages, a paper or parchment page that is numbered on the front but not the back) periodicals, journals, weekly’s, monthly’s, quarterly’s and glossy magazines, and once, when I was very ill with the croup, my dear mother’s Chatelaine.