My Uncommon Cold

Now I know it’s often referred to as the ‘common cold’, but when I have a cold, it’s anything but common - so rare is the event [and besides it’s me, so it’s bound to be much worse].

I suffered a summer cold when I was 25, it lasted about six weeks, everything was blocked and bunged and I was deaf apart from the odd crackling noises. After that I never had another cold for at least 15 years - not so much as a sniffle.

Even now I rarely catch colds, I may sneeze a few times and tell the grumpy old man that if I didn’t know better I’d say I’d got a cold - this is just me trying to feel some empathy with him when he’s succumbed, like everyone else to a stinker of a cold.

I actually put down my relative immunity to the common cold to my Gustatory Rhinitis - I’m usually so busy sneezing on a daily basis that the germs just don’t get in - but this depends entirely on me having a big cereal breakfast, if I have toast I don’t sneeze - and now I think about it, we had a new toaster for Christmas, ergo toast for breakfast = no daily sneezing, therefore the snot germs have got in! Don’t you just love it when you can find a perfect excuse to be greedy?

Now, women who have a family and/or a career don’t have the time to indulge in the ‘man-flu’ fantasy. Seeing as I work at home - when I feel like it - I do have the time and the required mardiness to refer to my uncommon cold as ‘man-flu’. Therefore my uncommon cold is really, really bad [obviously] and has developed into an equally uncommon cough - with ‘greenery’.

So, I have all the symptoms of ‘man-flu’ - sneezing, coughing, aching all over, shivers and sweats with the added bonus of being a woman with bloody hormones! And at a really hormonal time - boo hoo, sob.

I hate blowing my nose, my ears pop and crackle and for some reason - obviously some loose connections - when I’m sufficiently snotty and I blow, some of the air comes out of the innermost corner of my right eye, tickling my eyeball. [Ok, it’s my lacrimal punctum for tear draining]. I don't like coughing because it looks so unladylike [yes, well] and my ribs and back hurt, so in time honoured 'man-flu' fashion - it must be something serious.

The other night I couldn’t get to sleep for coughing, I wasn’t being helped any by the sympathetic but ineffectual pats on the back from the GOM. So I dragged on my best martyr's hair shirt [heavy duty caravan pyjamas] and went to sleep downstairs to give the GOM some peace.

Did he or the cat at any point come down to see if I was ok? No they did not, they just slept - selfishly - while I coughed and coughed and listened to PMB [can’t moan, they didn’t actually wake me] and the quarter hour chimes of a clock that isn’t supposed to bong in the night - I informed the GOM of this fact when he tiptoed downstairs at 7.30 in the morning to pat me a bit more. “I’d have come sooner” he said “but didn’t want to wake you.” ??!!!

I am feeling much better, I now have the strength to lift my fingers to type - I just love the patheticness of ‘man-flu’ I can really indulge in self-pity - I even managed to waft around with a duster this morning without having to lie down afterwards for a rest - this is such a big fib, I went back to bed to read my book. [I don't know why I bother telling lies, I always end up admitting it].

I am almost back to optimum grumpiness now. Proper, full strength moaning will be resumed as soon as possible …