my little nephew, Aidil is having the flu. like most kids his age which is approaching three this 28th, he hates taking his medicine. i personally agree to this dislike of modern medication, i hate the stuff. however, i do think that it's a necessary evil therefore like it or not, one has to swallow.
i heartily took upon the challenge of convincing Aidil to eat his reddish liquid flu medicine. i asked him why he doesn't want to have it. he rolled his eyes and said "tak sedap!". i am well aware that the only tasty prescription coming from a doctor is those chewable tablets of vitamin c. this particular medicine i was selling to my nephew is not at all de-lish.
so i thought, why not get him to swallow the stuff and use sweet tasty gummies as some sort of a mouthwash, to get rid of that bitter yucky taste. i told him this as he was innocently lying on the sofa. he listened attentively and then said "nanti adik muntah lagi". Oh, so his previous experience with the drug saw his body rejecting it violently. now, isn't that a problem...
enthusiastically, possibly like an insurance salesman, i assured him that he didn't have to worry about anything. since last time he didn't have those tasty gummies to help get rid of the bad taste, this time would be better. Aidil wasn't buying it though. i decided to do a demo of my bitter-medicine-taking strategy. i poured the littlest amount of the syrup and swallowed it with a smile that quickly changed into a frown. believe me, i quickly welcomed the gummies more gratefully than i thought i ever would.
a little convinced, Aidil decided to give it a try. i told him to get ready to stuff the gummies into his mouth as soon as i spoon him the syrup. i pushed the bowl of gummies nearer to him knowing that he might need more than a mere handful.
my sense of pride at having influenced him to take his medicine lasted less than 10 seconds. before he could even finish chewing a gummy, he was vomiting the content of his stomach right into the bowl filled with the other gummies. i gave up. i resorted into keeping his hair wet to lower down the temperature, he hates having damp cloth on his head.
from this memorable event, i learned that you can't really fool anybody with your optimistic idealism.
