The Louisiana neti pot

There’s only so much one can say about a neti pot. I think I’ve probably milked this cow dry.

There is one more thing, though. One more.

I was alerted by a reliable source to a news story about a man who died of a rare brain-eating parasite that he contracted through his home water system. He put the water into his neti pot, put the neti pot into his nose, and gave the brain-eating parasite a new place to live.

Wow, that’s disturbing.
That’s beyond horrifying.

The news article pointed out that this is a very rare case. It also pointed out that it can be avoided by boiling your water first. Well, okay. I can do that. So yesterday I tried to perfect the art of putting pure water into the neti pot. For some reason, I thought it would take 2 minutes to properly heat 4 ounces of water. I put bottled water into a mug, put it in the microwave, and hit 2:00. When I went back to check the water, it was the temperature of the earth’s core. As dumb as I can be, I am not dumb enough to then flush with water that hot.
So I let it sit.
And then I forgot it. I went back to check it a while later and it was cold.
Smudge Monkey, let’s try this again.

So, this time–being much smarter than before–I entered 45 seconds on the water. It was still the temperature of molten lava. After my third attempt, at 25 seconds, I got it right and cleansed my sinuses with non-scalding, purified water.

And then, when I was looking back over that article, I noticed something. The article says, “LOUISIANA man dies of rare brain infection….” And the man recommending the purified water was Louisiana’s state epidemiologist.

I have another recommendation. You know what I’m going to say, don’t you? You can see it coming from your end of the 17-mile bridge. You can see it through the miles and miles of backed up traffic in Baton Rouge, can’t you?

You know I can’t NOT say this. There’s another answer that is quite obvious to even the non-seasoned traveler.

Stay out of Louisiana.
Avoid the water in Louisiana.
Don’t catch a cold in Louisiana.
Don’t use a Louisianan neti pot.
If you absolutely must cross the 17-mile bridge, roll up your windows and grip the wheel with white knuckles. It’ll be over in 90 minutes or so…

Only in Louisiana.

Did I tell you I’m flying OVER Louisiana next week? Oh, that feels good. Feels like revenge. Except that it isn’t. Because no one cares.

I’ll continue using purified water in my neti pot on the off chance that Florida has a few parasites, too.

But I bet they don’t.
It’s a Louisiana thing.