It’s that time of year…

 Two weeks ago I caught a dandy, one of those triple whammy bugs that thrive in a sore throat, invade enough cells to make a person feel 90 and end up in a sinus infection. At one point, things were so bad that my teeth hurt when I sneezed, which was often. Since I firmly believe in Google, which I fact-check with Safari and Izik, I thought I’d do a little snooping around and see if there was some other cure besides the Mucinex, salt water gargle, saline sinus spray, and powdered vitamin C semi-dissolved in orange juice I was taking.

So here’s the regimen Google gave me to cure a cold. First start with your runny nose by drying out your sinuses with a blow dryer on warm.  Google god says this really works. The size of my nose makes this easier for me than for most people. Then drink a concoction called Gogol Mogol (probably originally from Atilla the Hun’s cook), which is a mixture of egg yolk, honey, sugar and butter in one-half of a cup of milk.  Add a shot of rum and heat it all like a hot toddy.  If you’re desperate, skip the egg, honey, sugar, and milk and just heat the last two ingredients.  Then make a poultice of tallow or some kind of animal fat smeared into flannel on one side and a vapor rub on the other and wrap it around your neck or put it on your chest. Then eat some boiled astralagus root, which is a golden, sweetish herb according to Google known to fight infections. (Known by whom?)  I don’t relly know what astralagus is, but it is currently on sale at http://www.Puritan.com. Yeah, I know, it didn’t seem to work for the Puritans either.  Also, the etymological root for astralagus makes it suspect for me.

For phase two, eat Japanese Unabashi, which is some kind of pickled plum or apricot. Supplement with anything cooked in curry and/or garlic, followed by raw onion and a piece of dark chocolate.  I skipped the curry, garlic, and onion.  The chocolate was good.

There are people who swear that a cold can be cured by listening to jazz.  I didn’t know most strains of rhinovirus (latin for “nose bug”) can’t stand jazz.  I thought hip hop would be more effective, but apparently not.  Some people swear by anything that makes you sweat, apparently one of the ways your body rids itself of poisons. It seems to me, a person ought to be more efficient at ridding one’s body of poisons by just taking a pee.  Apparently not.

People in the Far East say you can kill the cold by eating a big bowl of lizard soup. At this point, I decided I’d rather have the cold for two weeks. I finally came to the conclusion that all those mean people out on the internet were just making up gross, uncomfortable things for sick people to try.  I imagined two seventh-graders with an Ipad somewhere in Florida who wanted to have fun with Northerners by making up sick stuff for them to eat, drink or do. Can you imagine? “Wait, wait, Duane, listen to this. We could have people try to drink melted yellow snow because it would contain antibodies, and there’s no snow in Florida, so our friends are safe.”  “Yeah,” Duane says, “Let’s add yellow snow to the list. Ha ha.”

At this point I decided to go to a real doctor. Amoxicillin is great stuff.  So is Ann’s chicken soup.  Doing nothing is good. If you’re not alcoholic, a little Jack Daniels on ice is nice.  It won’t cure the cold, but you might not notice, and you can pretend you’re taking medicine. Sleep is better.

My cold is now gone and I’m back to my curmudgeonly self. I did it without lizard soup. If someone out there finds the lizard soup works better than Jack Daniels, let me know. Can I get a witness?  Google?   Anybody?