Another F*ing Cold

The Gods have spoken. I have no control. I have nothing but to except their guidance in this issue. This cold is knocking me on my ass. As you might remember, the last time I came back from Wisconsin I had a bad cold. I hemmed and hawed about it, but this one has me trumped. Iâ€ve played all the cards I could, from Comtrex, Vicks Vapor Rub, to chicken soup, to a hot toddy, to dressing up in every warm thing I have and try to sweat it out, but this thing has got me. Just like a fly in a web, itâ€s been cocooning me in hot and cold, cough, sneezing, head ache, stuffy and runny, drippy nose, wheezing, lack of sleep and the coup de grace, an overall feeling like shit. Now, feeling like shit is something Iâ€m used to, but add all those other things to the mix and you just want to crawl under the blankets and wait for something to grow out of your head.
Colds have been around forever, ever since the cave man. Any time you get too many people together there are bound to have germs passing between them. Back then the cave man would have just died and been replaced by another, since there were so plentiful. Todayâ€s bodies, try in vein, to fight and fight, with the help of all kinds of over the counter medicines to keep us moving; sometimes they work, sometimes they donâ€t. Sometimes itâ€s a roller coaster ride you canâ€t get off until the end and you just have to suck up the ebb and flow of the virus as it, gangs up, fortifies it offence, and plans to go around your medicines. After all these years, colds have become smarter than the medications that have been sent into battle to fight for you. When I was a kid, the answer to everything was penicillin. Have a cold, have some bubblegum flavored penicillin. If you were really sick, they had a grape flavor. Being a kid with the grape flavor, you were instantly treated to sleeping in the penthouse suite on the couch in case, I suppose, you caught on fire with your fever, youâ€d be closer to the fire extinguisher in the pantry. On the couch, youâ€d be treated to the heaviest parade of extra blankets from past relatives and dead people youâ€d ever want to be under. Your parents would tuck in all the blankets neatly under you so you couldnâ€t move during the night. Just a head, covered with a sock hat and as slit for your eyes and the rest of you would be mummified until morning; if you survived. Parents have a way of over doing things, especially as when you are a kid, sometimes you actually think they want you to survive or something. When you arenâ€t sick, their, “go play in the street” attitude might make them seem otherwise. As a child, I was always sick; from measles, to chicken pox, to colds, strep throat, bronchitis, pneumonia, mononucleosis, and there was a point when there was a viral meningitis scare. Iâ€m surprised they didnâ€t just leave me at a K-Mart bathroom, just to get away from me. Iâ€ve been battling diseases for most of my life, you would think that I would have some antibodies set up for this shit by now. But NOOOOOO! As an adult, Iâ€m reduced to a childlike state, fighting the good fight for control of my body temperature, my breathing, and the fluids running, like cockroach in the light, out of my nose. I want to suck my thumb and get out my wubby blanket and have it tell me it will be all right. My girlfriend tries to help, but Iâ€m just a colicky baby. I donâ€t know what I want, but I want it now. In frustration, she shrugs her shoulders. Iâ€m sorry. Iâ€ll roll out the chicken soup, drink more fluids, and bundle on the clothes. I have to ride out the hurricane in my body, alone. Like the doctor in the emergency room that told me when I was bleeding profusely after I nearly cut off my finger, “It will stop bleeding one way or another,” I will temper my response, because like most things in life, this too, will pass.