It started happening last night. My throat seemed a little itchy, and as the night progressed, that itch turned to soreness. When I woke up this morning, my throat felt as if someone had taken a steel wool pad to its insides, and I was feeling a bit stuffed up.
As today rolled along, my energy level started dipping, and the throat felt worse. As I write now, I am looking around for a tissue, because my nose is starting to run.
I have a cold, dammit. And life royally sucks.
The common cold. It's like the annoying little cousin that you have to deal with at family gatherings. It's basically harmless, but incredibly annoying and, so it seems, inescapable. And there is nothing that will get rid of it, no matter what all those damn commercials on TV say (and here I am talking about getting rid of colds, not little cousins, because they do not yet make a product such as "little cousin repellent." However, I feel such an item would be an incredible seller.)
They make a ton of cold and flu products, and the aisles of stores are filled with them. And they all accomplish only one thing: Making you wish you could not taste. I think the theory behind cold medicines is that they will focus your attention more on the havoc being wreaked on your taste buds--because they taste so bad--and less on the fact that your nose is producing enough mucous to create an oily slick across an eight-lane interstate highway.
However, I think the worst thing about colds is the dilemma they pose to those that have them: Do you go to work, or call in sick? This is a heinous dilemma, because no matter what choice you make, you're screwed.
Let's say you decide to go to work: You go to be a trooper, work through the illness and show your dedication. However, since you're sick, your work suffers--and all of your co-workers get mad because you are exposing them to your germs, despite the fact that you probably got the cold from one of them in the first place. Trust me, I know; I made the mistake of going to work sick one day when I was employed by This Fine Newspaper, and anyone that was sick subsequently was said to have the "Boeglebonic flu," even if they had something else completely different (such as an ankle sprain, cancer or a pregnancy).
And if you decide to stay home, people call you a wuss; your employer thinks you're lazy; and you lose money if you do not have any sick days. Plus, you can still be blamed for giving your co-workers your cold before you called in sick. This is because your co-workers are evil cretins.
However, like everything else in life, you have to make the best of a cold. With a cold, it's tough, but there are indeed some things you can do make a cold survivable. Here are a few tips:
-- Play Kleenex basketball: You can practice your free-throws using a trash can and the numerous soiled tissues that you accumulate, thanks to an overabundance of semi-fluids flowing forth out of your nose. Yeah, the game can be kind of gross, but who cares? You have a cold, and life sucks anyway.
-- The disgusting food clean-up conquest: One unfortunate side effect of colds is that, often times, you lose your sense of taste. What better opportunity is there to get rid of the disgusting-tasting, but edible food you have around your house? This is the perfect chance to eat, without displeasure, things like fruitcake, Spam and Brussels sprouts to get rid of them.
-- The "sore throat" excuse for ice cream: Right now, I would be a perfect candidate for this. I can still taste, but I have a sore throat--and therefore I have a great excuse to eat ice cream. Be sure to take advantage of this game, however, before you lose your sense of taste. Because if you eat ice cream when you have no sense of taste, you are a dumb-ass.
I hope these tips help you as you battle your next cold. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some ice cream to eat and some snotty Kleenex to throw at trash cans. And I have a hunch that tomorrow for breakfast, it will be Spam, Spam, and more Spam...
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who says that if you feel this column was lame, blame it on his diminished mental abilities due to his cold. His column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.