You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Feeling sick, being unable to breathe, wanting to slit your throat with a dull soup spoon.
I am having a terrible day. My head is pulsing with every sickened beat of my heart. I can hear it reverberating in my ears. I hate the sound I make. I am a Ferrari with with only 6 cylinders working.
Like a cat burglar sneaking into a home, ransacking nasal passages, and stealing fresh air, the sickness has violated my head.
My body wants to call 911, but I’m afraid dispatchers will snap back “so what do you want us to do about it?”
I see spots before my eyes. It’s like there is a vapor cloud of darkness in the front of my face. It feels like a wash cloth, smeared with vasoline, placed over my nose and mouth, clogging my every breath. This heinous intruder is even in my eye balls. They are itchy and watering as if I have been stricken by bubonic goo.
I have snorted a gallon of Vicks nasal spray to the point of overdose. It is suppose to dry me up, but it works as effectively as a waffel maker inside a coat closet.
I am trying to draw breath, but it is labored, heavy, like inhaling syryup.
So I place another kleenex to my nose. My skin is red and raw and I wince. I don’t want to touch my nose again, but I need a secure seal otherwise I am going to watch my face explode, shooting forth a neutron bomb of phlemn, like a sick spider shooting out a coagulated web.
So with some consternation and understanding that this is a temporary respit from the excruciating discomfort, I blow as hard as I can, trying to loosen anything not nailed down. I am loud like a steam engine. I am factory whistle in Dublin sounding through the country side, signaling for the lads to hit the taverns. Birds rustle in the branches and dogs cock their heads to see what has just happened. I dab my nose with another saturated Kleenex. I believe there is a speck of brain matter. There is a temporary relief. I feel the cool rush of oxygen. It is sweet like a mountain breeze. Somewhere Julie Andrews is twirling and singing the Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music.
But then, like cold concrete being poured out of a cement mixer,the gunk oozes back into my respiratory passages.
Another wasted blow. Another wasted Kleenex. Another wasted blast of Vicks.
I hate getting sick.
I am getting light headed and the world is fading to black and white. I cannot continue to inhale at half the volume my body is use to.
I think about passing out and slamming my head on the corner of the counter. I imagine the coroner coming into the kitchen and determing the cause of death:
“Phlegm restricted his avioli like a hangman’s noose. Without air, he blacked out. The cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head.”
And with that, the medical techs zip up my body bag and throw me on the scrap heap of death.
Another congestion related demise.
I am suffocating inside my own skin. I am a Macy Thanksgiving Day float filled with stale air. I am forced to open my mouth and let in air.
Thank God gave us a 3rd air passage I think to myself.
Like a hatch blown on the space shuttle, oxygen rushes into the void. I feel the air burst into my chest.
Sadly, it will not be long before my mouth and throat begin to dry like glue on construction paper. Each breath is a sandstorm raging across my esophagus.
So there you have it. The winter’s first sickness. Did I take the flu shot? No. Is this the flu? no. It’s the common cold and the common cold will never be cured because the huge pharmacutical company’s make too much “bank” getting me to buy sugar pills and placebos and nose sprays that stop the common cold like a dandelion stops a bull dozer.
Stay thirsty for health America.
And that is crazy.