Welcome Back, Common Cold

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The following post may seem very incoherent. Please do not hold it against me.

It was early Wednesday morning when I awoke. I got out of my bed ready to start the day, only something did not seem right. I looked at the clock thinking maybe I had pulled a Rip Van Winkle and slept for several years, but that didn’t seem to be it. I looked outside, but everything seemed in place. There were no meteors or anything.

As I sat up, the difference dawned on me. My head began to throb in a very specific way that I have experienced far too many times in my life.

The common cold had found me again.

For my entire life, I have received one cold per year like clockwork. It will start with this very specific type of throbbing head, one that scientist’s have named “Colditis headthrobosis.” (If they haven’t named it that, they should.) Then, like a snot bomb, a sudden explosion fills every orifice of my head with the stickiest snot ever known to man.

Once this happens, I am lost to world. There is no possibility of me being productive. There is no possibility of me doing anything. I will go through my daily routine, but in my head I have drifted away to a magical land void of head-snot or any of the bad things that come with a head full of snot like runny nose or frantic searches for anything that could work as a tissue.

Of course I could take medicine. Everyone I know suggests this. What they don’t realize is by giving me cold medicine, you have taken a barely functioning person and drugged him up. Asking me to do anything at this point is the equivalent of walking up to any of the antagonists in “Dawn of the Dead” and saying, “You seem trustworthy. Enjoy this highly important task.”

For everyone’s best interest, I avoid Dayquil or Nightquil or any of the quils. It makes me feel worse, but it makes me at least slightly more pleasant to be around.

There are benefits to having a cold, though. For my wife, the main benefit involves soup.

I do not care for soup. Soup as a meal is ridiculous and anyone who says otherwise is nuts. Because of this, most evenings when my wife plans on serving soup for dinner involves me making this sound:

“Uuuuuuugh….”

When soup is suggested during a cold, the noise is gone. In fact, I even occasionally request it. I suspect that my wife would purposely infect me if it meant she could have some tomato-basil and call it a meal.

The other main benefit is a very selfish one. It is hard to be mean to a sick person. If someone were to say something rude to me, all I would have to do is make a quick and very loud snort, and the rudeness will make way for a nice tone and possibly an offer to grab me some tea.

By this time next week, my head should have returned to its normal, mucus-free self. The congested head that feels as though it has been filled with concrete will have made way and I will be able to breathe again.

Then in a year I’ll get to do it again. I should probably take more vitamins…

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