Published Feb. 4, 2007 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
By Aaron J. Brown
Hi, my name is Aaron and I’m a workaholic. I have been carrying my day planner to family functions for seven years. And, though few of us like to admit it, workaholics like me have a different perspective on the common cold than most people. For one thing, I don’t allow myself to be sick all that often. I’ll fight through stuffy or runny noses, coughs or aches because I’ve got things to do. Even when my voice sounds that of a 75-year-old tobacco lobbyist, I will be at the keyboard, in the classroom and on the phone.
Only when I get the hallucinogenic head colds – ganja colds I call them – do I stay home. In truth, those days, as medicated and miserable as they might be, are some of the only true vacation days I really take. They are the only days I eat soup on the couch, watch old movies on dusty VHS tapes from the basement, turn off the computer and snap shut my planner until the next day. Sure, I have other days off, but I always have things to do. Nothing suppresses that urge more than disease though, and in a strange way I enjoy my annual knock-me-down-flat cold.
You have to respect viruses. They are the Hell’s Angels of microscopic organisms. They’ll roll in and, when they do, you best just let them finish what they started. Only when they run their course can your body expel them. Just like a biker gang, they’ll own the place until they run out of glass to break and people to stab with the shards.
I do some of the traditional cold remedies – chicken soup and cran-raspberry juice – but I prefer to medicate myself and fall asleep in front of visually appealing but plot-light movies. The more abstract the movie the better. There’s something about watching “2001: A Space Odyssey” when you are hopped up on cold pills that improves the experience. Same thing with the TV show “CHiPs.” Ever see the episode where Ponch pulls over erstwhile children’s TV icon HR Puffnstuff? A swig of Nyquil is the only way that makes sense.
There’s an old “Saturday Night Live” commercial for a fake product called Hibernol. In the ad, you take Hibernol and sleep for months, while colds enter and leave your body at will, until springtime comes. If I weren’t so busy I might take Hibernol, so in that way it’s probably a good thing I’m a workaholic. Then again, when a cold seems to make the ceiling spin clockwise any medication just makes it spin counterclockwise. It won’t stop until you’ve napped.
On television we see wall to wall ads for products claiming they can stave off colds or help you go to work. It’s all garbage. When it comes to the common cold, science hasn’t found and won’t soon reach a total cure. When a knock-down cold comes your way, accept your fate. It’s a blessing in disguise. Stay home for a day and then go back to work. A cold is nature’s Taser gun. Don’t fight the Taser. Don’t try to work when your head is throbbing and office supplies on your desk seem like they’re waving at you. If you do, everything you accomplish will end up looking like John Nash’s workshop in “A Perfect Mind” anyway. Just sit back and heal. Those virus bikers will run out of drugs, money and gas soon. When they do, our immune system will pull up in the paddy wagon.
Get well soon.Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.