The Garlic Necklace

I noticed a bit of annoyance creep into my mother’s tone when I asked how my father was doing. “He’s wearing garlic again,” she sighed.

I knew what she meant. I first encountered the garlic necklace a few years prior, when (ironically) I visited my parents the day after watching the remake of the Salem’s Lot miniseries. The faint odor of garlic hit me when I entered the house and got stronger as I approached the living room where my father sat watching a baseball game. I noticed an old green Army sock knotted on a leather chain wrapped loosely around his neck. I couldn’t keep the look of disgust off my face when I realized he was the reason for the garlicky smell.

“Are you wearing garlic?” I asked. “Is there garlic in that sock?”

“Yes, yes I am,” he replied without even looking at me, as if wearing garlic stuffed inside an old sock around your neck was something everyone was doing and I was behind on the trend.

I lost it then. Not even trying to stifle my laughter, I asked him if he had invited vampires into the house—just like in the previously viewed Salem’s Lot. “Why no,” he replied, as serious as ever and not getting the joke. “I’m fighting off a cold.”

My father is legendary for bizarre health remedies and conspiracy theories. When I was growing up, he was convinced chlorine in the drinking water caused cancer. I quickly learned to keep colds from him after the time he made me eat an entire baked onion because he was certain it would cure whatever ailed me. He was right in a way—I forgot about my cold because I was too busy throwing up after choking down layer after layer of that huge baked disgusting mess.

But the garlic necklace took the cake. His remedies and theories usually only involved him, so the family tolerated them, but this one was different. It looked weird. And Lord, did it smell terrible. I swear every room in their house reeked of garlic, like garlic seeped into the fibers of every bit of furniture and fabric in the place. And I’m sure being stuffed inside that nasty old Army sock only made the smell a million times worse. It was years before I could even think about cooking with garlic again after being traumatized by that necklace.

My poor mother tried everything she could to get rid of the garlic necklace. She bought him garlic tablets. She threw out all his old socks. She pumped him full of vitamins in hopes of keeping his immune system strong in order to fight off colds. Hand sanitizer became a requirement if you wanted to visit. But nothing worked. He somehow managed to find another old sock to stuff full of garlic in order to make his magic necklace whenever he felt a cold coming on. My mother finally shrugged her shoulders in defeat. My brothers and I still enjoyed vampire jokes.

But I think the garlic necklace may be in the past. Tonight on the phone, he mentioned his latest theory. It involves the beef industry, heart disease and the drug companies. I tuned it out after a bit because it was long and complicated. But as long as it doesn’t involve garlic in socks, I’m fine with it—unless he tries to make me eat a baked onion.