Mi Vickicito

Summary

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Unexplainable – "Mi Vickicito"

Host: Julia Longoria
Date: March 30, 2026
Producer: Vox Media
Episode Theme:
A personal and cultural exploration of the mysterious, near-mythical powers of Vicks VapoRub, seen through the lens of Julia Longoria’s Cuban grandmother’s lifelong relationship with “Vickicito.” As Julia prepares to depart Unexplainable, she revisits one of her first radio stories—a surprising blend of family, history, immigration, and a blue jar of eucalyptus jelly that means far more than its label suggests.

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Episode Overview

The episode offers an emotionally resonant, humorous, and touching account of Julia Longoria's investigation into her grandmother's devotion to Vicks VapoRub—affectionately called “Vickicito.” What begins as an inquiry into quirky family habits unfolds into a deeper story about comfort, scarcity, memory, and the Cuban-American experience. The episode also marks Julia's bittersweet farewell to the show.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Julia’s Good-Bye and Introduction

• [01:11] Julia announces this is her last episode (at least for now) and introduces her grandmother as “irreverent, intelligent," defying expectations well into her 80s.
• She recalls discovering multiple jars of Vicks in her grandmother’s room, the affectionate nickname “Vickicito," and her puzzlement at her grandmother's enthusiastic devotion to the ointment.

2. The Many Uses (and Myths) of Vicks in Cuban Culture

• [04:18] Julia calls her grandmother (mixing English and Spanish). Grandma immediately declares:
  • "Every time that you have, like, a sore throat or feel like you are coughing... Vicisito es bueno paratodo. Vicks is good for everything." – Grandma Julia [04:36]
• Uses listed:
  • Chest rub for cough (per the label)
  • Sore knees and muscles (still on the label)
  • Toe and fingernail fungus (off-label)
  • Strengthening nails (“You think it makes your nails stronger?” — “Yeah.”) [05:18]
  • Hair conditioner (!):
    “Before you shampoo your hair, Vicks VapoRub as hair conditioner.” – Julia, surprised [05:35]
  • Hand and foot cream
• The 'Vicks-smell' in the bathroom became a family joke.

3. Vicks as Cultural and Historical Touchstone

• Julia explores her grandmother's Cuban origins and how Vicks connects her to the past.
  • Grandma doesn’t usually like to discuss Cuba or the Revolution.
  • Vicks use started in her Cuban childhood. [06:20]
• Powerful moment: The product becomes a bridge into sensitive family history, acting as a “foot in the door” to conversations about Cuba, which previously felt inaccessible.

4. The Vicks-Cuba Connection & Cold War History

• [11:05] Julia dives into the connection between Vicks and the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961).
  • After the failed invasion, Cuban prisoners were ransomed for $50 million in food and medical supplies—including Vicks VapoRub.
• Julia and Grandma discuss:
  • The trauma and scarcity after the Revolution (“You go to the groceries and was nothing. It was a very, very hard time.” — Grandma Julia [14:23])
  • The huge lines when new medical supplies (like Vicks) arrived [14:34]
  • Creative use when other products weren’t available (hand cream, conditioner, fungus treatment)

5. Scarcity Breeds Creativity, Memory, and Comfort

• Grandma began trying Vicks for everything because there were no hand creams or lotions (“Then I find out when I use it for my kids and, oh, my skin, you know, my hands look soft. And I said, oh, it's good for the skin, too.” [14:47])
• Quote:
  – “If it's good for your hands, you have to be good for your feet too. So I thought to use [it].” – Grandma Julia [15:58]
• The “everything” solution was born of necessity—a theme echoed in immigrant stories.

6. The Emotional Resonance of Routine and Scent

• Julia reflects that the smell of Vicks transports her back to her childhood and experiences with her grandmother (“Vicks takes me to my origins, a place of comfort and silliness and joy.” [17:00])
• Quote:
  – “All this time, the stuff has been bringing her back to her own beginnings, to her own pink room, the place where she learned what comfort is.” – Julia [17:20]

7. Closing Moments: Sensory Memory

• [18:10] A tender moment: Grandma, alone in the studio, opens a jar of Vicks and inhales deeply.
  • “Oh, I love this. I love these.” – Grandma Julia [18:13]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Vicks’ Versatility
  – “Vicks is good for everything.” — Grandma Julia [04:36] – “Grandma, you used to put it in your hair?” — Julia, incredulous [05:32]
• On the Cuban Revolution
  – “It's really scale right away, everything disappear. You go to the groceries and was nothing.” — Grandma Julia [14:23]
• On Surviving Scarcity
  – “Then I find out when I use it for my kids and, oh, my skin, you know, my hands look soft. And I said, oh, it's good for the skin, too.” — Grandma Julia [14:47]

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Timestamps & Key Segments

• [01:11] Julia’s goodbye and episode setup
• [04:18] Grandmother’s belief in Vicks as a cure-all
• [05:35] Vicks as hair conditioner revelation
• [06:20] Early memories of Vicks in Cuba
• [11:05] Historical interlude: Bay of Pigs and the Vicks ransom
• [14:23] Scarcity, hardship, and improvisation in Cuba
• [17:00] Sensory nostalgia and emotional comfort
• [18:10] Off-mic: Grandma quietly enjoying her Vicks

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Tone & Style

The episode balances humor with deep emotion, juxtaposing quirky family anecdotes with weighty historical context. Julia’s voice is warm, reflective, and gently self-deprecating, often using familial Spanglish and direct translation to blend cultures. Grandma Julia’s warmth, pragmatism, and matter-of-fact resilience saturate every answer.

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Conclusion

"Mi Vickicito" weaves together the science of comfort, the legacy of exile, and the alchemy of household rituals, all through the foggy shimmer of a blue glass jar. Listeners come away with a new appreciation for the hidden histories within everyday items, and a moving portrait of how immigrant memory and improvisation shape family life.

A loving, unsentimental farewell to the show—and a small, unforgettable argument for asking your elders about their own "unexplainable" traditions.

Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

Support for the show comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. They say that Claude is the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow. So for developers that looks like Claude code, it runs in your terminal, reads your code base, and can apparently take on things like writing tests, refactoring, or debugging without you hand holding it through every step. Anthropic committed to not running ads in Claude. So when you are deep in something that matters to you, they say the answer you get is shaped by your question, not by an advertiser's agenda. Ready to tackle bigger problems? Get started with Claude today at Claude AI Unexplainable.

[Julia Longoria]

So good, so good, so good.

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[Julia Longoria]

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[Grandma Julia]

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[Julia Longoria]

Hello Unexplainable listeners, Julia Longoria here, one of your co hosts, and I'm here with you to share a piece of news, which is that this will be my very last episode with Unexplainable, at least for now. Who knows what turns life takes? And to say goodbye, I wanted to share with you one of the very first radio stories that I ever made. Because at the center of it is an unexplainable phenomenon, which is why does my grandma and so many people in the world put Vicks VapoRub on everything? I worked on this story with a reporter named Kenny Malone for a show from WNYC called Only Human. My Grandma just turned 80, but I'd be willing to bet my grandma's 80 is not the 80 you're thinking. This is a woman who in one year underwent knee replacement surgery and took trips to China, New York City and Paris. The woman defies expectation. One minute she's designing high fashion dresses, the next she's starting spitball fights at dinner. Irreverent, Intelligent. It's like every week she's telling us about a different novel she's reading in English, her non native tongue. All of this is to say my grandmother is no fool. That's why I can't wrap my head around how or why the woman I've just described worships a little blue jar of eucalyptus jelly. Of course, as a little kid, there was no reason to think Grandma's love affair with Vixx was unusual, but in hindsight, there were some pretty obvious clues. There was a time I remember walking into her bedroom and seeing four, five, maybe even six jars strewn on her vanity. There's the fact that Grandma doesn't actually call Vicks Vicks. She only talks about her beloved Vicissito. She adds the Ito as a mini love letter to the stuff. And then maybe strangest of all, was that when she would stay at our house and take a shower, the bathroom would always reek of Vicks VapoRub afterwards, whether or not she was sick. Now that I'm older, it occurs to me that actually I have a lot of questions about Grandma and her Vickycito. So I sent an audio recorded to my sister Paula, who was with our grandma, and I called.

[Nordstrom Rack Advertiser]

Nobody pick up the phone.

[Julia Longoria]

Just a few things to know before you hear this. Number one, my grandma is from Cuba, so I'm going to kind of translate for her as she speaks in Spanglish. Number two, she's got a little bit of a low voice. And number three, before I could even ask her why she loves Vic so much, she said something that sent the conversation totally off the rails. Hello, Grandma?

[Grandma Julia]

Yeah, this is Grandma Julia. Hi.

[Julia Longoria]

Okay. Yo que diablar con tigo sobre bikisito.

[Grandma Julia]

Oh, it's bisito. Oh, yeah, yeah. Every time that you have, like, a sore throat or feel like you are coughing, you say, no, no,

[Julia Longoria]

Right there. Vicissito es bueno paratodo. Vicks is good for everything. So I'm like, wait, what do you mean everything? So first she's like, you could put it on your chest because it'll help with your cough. That makes sense. That's on the label. Then she's like, you can use it on your knee if you have a sore knee, and that one's also on the label. But then things start getting weird for fungus. She says, Vicks on your toenails will cure your toenail fungus. And she says she puts it on her fingernails to stop them from breaking. You think it makes your nails stronger?

[Grandma Julia]

Yeah.

[Julia Longoria]

And then. This is just insane to me. Grandma, you used to put it in your hair.

[Grandma Julia]

Yes, yes. Before you get your.

[Julia Longoria]

Before you shampoo your hair, Vicks VapoRub as hair conditioner. So I asked her, is this why the shower smelled like Vicks? And she said, oh, no, I'm sure I'd stop using Vicks's hair conditioner. By then, it was probably because I was using it as hand and foot cream. So the story of how my Grandma ended up using Vicks literally from head to toe. Turns out to be a story about Cuba, or at least that's what she hinted at in our conversation. What's your earliest memory of Vicks?

[Grandma Julia]

Oh, my gosh. I think I grew up with that one when I was very little.

[Julia Longoria]

She said she grew up with it when she was very little, which was surprising to me because Grandma doesn't talk much about her past, about her childhood or life in Cuba. She was 30 when she and her family left in 1967, and I feel like Cuba for her. It's like when we're watching TV together, she'll always pick Everybody Loves Raymond over any HBO drama I want to watch. I ay. She goes, why are we gonna choose to watch ugly things? Life has enough ugly things already. I'm pretty sure for her, Cuba is one of those ugly things. Do you think? I mean, I wonder, like, when the embargo started, did you still get Vixx? She's like, well, sometimes it was there and sometimes it wasn't. If it was there, I used it. So I ask her, there was a time when there wasn't Vix. And she says, that's right. But then it came back. I don't remember very well after the Bay of Pigs. I know that may not sound like much, but I'm almost positive that that was the first time my grandma ever said the words Bay of Pigs out loud to me. That's when the US tried to invade Cuba in 1961. She was still living there at that point, and we've never talked about that or the revolution or her childhood. Nothing. In college, I became obsessed with Cuba. I did my thesis on Cuban bloggers, and last year I went to Cuba for the first time. I haven't really talked to Grandma about any of this, and it's kind of weird because I think of us as close, but I guess I don't know much about her as the person pre Grandma. The whole thing is making me kind of nervous. All four of my grandparents fled Cuba, and Grandma is the last one still living. I've never known how to start the Cuba conversation. If Vic's VapoRub is a foot in the door, it's better than nothing. So I asked her if she'd be willing to sit down in person and talk more about this Vic stuff. And maybe Vic's in Cuba. I don't know. We should do that when we're together again.

[Grandma Julia]

Okay, maybe another day.

[Julia Longoria]

Okay. Grandma was scheduled to come visit me in New York in a few months, and she promised she'd sit down with me and tell me the rest of the story. That's after the break.

[Narrator/Host]

Support for the show comes from Anthropic, the team behind Clawd. If you are the kind of person who goes down a rabbit hole and then stays there, or who keeps pulling at a question until it clicks, they say Claude was built for that kind of thinking. For developers that looks like Claude code. It runs in your terminal, reads your code base and can apparently take on things like writing tests, refactoring or debugging without you handholding it through every step. I texted my friend who uses Claude and told him I was making an ad about Claude and asked why why I should use Claude and or Claude code. It's just really good at coding lol he said. What does that mean? I said with it I can build things. I wouldn't have time for myself or ability for myself in many cases, he said. Nice, I said. Anthropic says they are committed to not running ads in Claude. So when you are deep in something that matters to you, they say the answer you get is shaped by your question, not by someone else's advertisement taking you out of the deep work Ready to tackle bigger problems? Try Clawd for free at Claude AI Unexplainable and see why some problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.

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[Julia Longoria]

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[Grandma Julia]

You sit on it. It's like slight deflator and it smells like potpourri. But it also smells like grandma.

[Julia Longoria]

Before sitting down with Grandma, there was something she'd mentioned in our first conversation that I needed to understand. She seemed to imply that there was some connection between Vicks VapoRub and the Bay of Pigs invasion.

[Historical Narrator/Reporter]

The assault has begun on the dictatorship of Fidel Castro.

[Julia Longoria]

Just a little refresher. In 1961, the United States tried to overthrow Fidel Castro. This was about two years after he'd taken power. The US trained a small militia of Cuban exiles to invade their former country and oust Castro.

[Historical Narrator/Reporter]

And the rebellion against the red tinged dictator was on.

[Julia Longoria]

The invasion failed spectacularly and Castro captured around 1,100 people.

[Historical Narrator/Reporter]

Have you heard much from your husband since he's been in prison?

[Julia Longoria]

I'm too much nervous. They stayed in Cuba's prisons for almost two years. And just before Christmas in 1962, the US and Cuba finalized a deal to free the majority of the prisoners.

[Historical Narrator/Reporter]

What do you think about the release

[Celsius Advertiser]

of all your companions?

[Grandma Julia]

Well, I think this is a wonderful thing.

[Historical Narrator/Reporter]

We.

[Julia Longoria]

The reason this is important to our story is that the US paid an unusual ransom for the hostages. It wasn't cash. The prisoners were exchanged for about $50 million in food and medical supplies, everything from Listerine to aspirin to surgical equipment. And as best we can tell, in that ransom was a whole lot of Vicks VapoRub. You could sit there.

[Grandma Julia]

Are we talking about Vic and Vickycito?

[Julia Longoria]

We're talking about Vickycito. So it's two months later, Grandma's in New York and we're sitting down in a studio at wmyc.

[Grandma Julia]

I think I got nervous.

[Julia Longoria]

You shouldn't be nervous. This is like where. I know it's weird, but it's like we're sitting at home, whatever. We just never do this. I've always thought of Grandma as this fearless matriarch who started a new life in a new country as a young woman. It's so strange to see her nervous like this. And do you remember what's like your first memory of Vicks?

[Grandma Julia]

Oh, when I was very young and then I got cold, my mother, she used to put Vic. And then you have to be in your room.

[Julia Longoria]

And do you remember what your room looked like?

[Grandma Julia]

My bedroom set was pink with flower painted and I have my pink cover, you know, from my bed. I had a good life when I was young.

[Julia Longoria]

Grandma grew up near one of the most beautiful beach towns in Cuba called Varadero. She and my grandpa met on the beach. He was a friend of her big brother's. I have this black and white picture hanging in my room of the two of them sitting on the sand. Grandma's got one of those 50s. Halter bathing suits with little buttons down the middle. Abuelo's got his hair slicked back. They're both smiling this stylish, effortless smile. She was 21 years old when the revolution came.

[Grandma Julia]

Oh, I mean, that was unbelievable what happened there, let me tell you. Unbelievable. But that is another point of.

[Julia Longoria]

Well, what do you mean?

[Grandma Julia]

It's another point? Because with the revolutions and all that, you know, then in Cuba, that was really hard. Was a very hard time.

[Julia Longoria]

What do you mean? Like, what do you remember when you say it was a hard time?

[Grandma Julia]

It's really scale right away, everything disappear. You go to the groceries and was nothing. It was a very, very hard time.

[Julia Longoria]

And then when all those medical supplies

[Grandma Julia]

came in, oh, my God, people get crazy. You have to see the lines on the pharmacy. People get.

[Julia Longoria]

Was that when you started using Vicks in different ways, like for conditioner and stuff like that?

[Grandma Julia]

Yes, you know, because I remember when Castor took power in Cuba that you can't find any hand cream or anything. Then I find out when I use it for my kids and, oh, my skin, you know, my hands look soft. And I said, oh, it's good for the skin, too.

[Julia Longoria]

And then what else after that? Like, how did you get to, like, put it on?

[Grandma Julia]

And then, you know, I remember when I was in Cuba, the soap there was very hard, and then the water wasn't good. And then my nails started to break a lot and, you know, said, oh, gosh, my hands are big and not pretty, but I like to have my nail to look nice. Then I start to use that in my nails and oh, my God, my nails looks much better.

[Julia Longoria]

Grandma, I don't think your hands are ugly. Like, I actually think about your hands as, like, I wanna have beautiful hands. Like, Grandma, I always think that. For real.

[Grandma Julia]

I don't know. I compare my hands with my friends. I said, oh, my God, my hands are so big.

[Julia Longoria]

I do that same thing, actually. And then you said, did you use it for fungus? Was that when was the first time?

[Grandma Julia]

Yeah, I have fungus. And then I noticed that they start to get better.

[Julia Longoria]

But it was on your toes. Right? Like, how did you get from the point of like, well, if it's good

[Grandma Julia]

for your hands, you have to be good for your feet too. So I thought to use.

[Julia Longoria]

Was like, the worst period of your life when you were using Vixx in all these crazy ways. If that were me, like, it would bring back horrible memories and I might, like, never want to see it again. Right?

[Grandma Julia]

Yeah. Right.

[Julia Longoria]

But you embrace it now.

[Grandma Julia]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because that always made me feel good when I was sick. I mean, like I said, was working for me. So even in my hard times, I have. I love that. Yeah.

[Julia Longoria]

So hold on. I can't be crying in this part.

[Grandma Julia]

Take me, Smell me.

[Julia Longoria]

When I get one whiff of Vicks, I am transported back to my room at Grandma's house. I see my pink and teal bedspread. I hear Grandma opening the door to say good morning and sing me las manitas loudly and off tune. I laugh and throw pillows at her. She throws them right back at me. Vicks takes me to my origins, a place of comfort and silliness and joy. I never thought about where Vickycito must transport Grandma. I always figured her obsession with an American product must be another way she'd assimilated and left her past behind. All this time, the stuff has been bringing her back to her own beginnings, to her own pink room, the place where she learned what comfort is. When I was going back and listening to the tape, I found this one wonderful moment. It happened when I had to step out of the studio for a second and I left Grandma by herself. Hold on one second. Let me just.

[Ryan Reynolds/Mint Mobile Advertiser]

I'll be right back.

[Julia Longoria]

While I stepped out, Grandma picked up a little container of Vicks I had in the studio. She unscrewed the lid and just enjoyed the smell for a while. Oh, I love these. It's hard to hear, but Grandma just said, I love this. I love these. This episode was produced by Kenny Malone and me, Julia Longoria, with help from Jillian Weinber. It was edited by Ben Adair. Special thanks to Jim Ratzenberger, Ashley Kaufman and the Greensboro History Museum. Some of the archival audio you heard in this episode comes from the Lynn and Lewis Wolfson Florida Moving Image archives. The Unexplainable team includes Jorge Jess, Joanna Solotarov, Meredith Hadinot, Bird Pinkerton, Noam Hassenfeld, Sally Helm, Amy Padula and Christian Ayala. If you have thoughts to share with us, we are@ unexplainableox.com and if you'd like to support this show and the journalism that VOX does, we would love it if you would become a member. It's easy to do. Just go to Vox.com members. You'll get full access to all of Vox's journalism. And for those of you who have emailed to let us know that you signed up because of Unexplainable, thank you. It makes a huge difference. Unexplainable is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. We'll be back soon with another episode.

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