Things to Put Up Your Nose

I still haven’t quite kicked this illness I picked up in the picturesque marshlands of coastal Georgia almost two weeks ago.

Most of the symptoms have subsided. The body aches are gone. The fever broke over a week ago. My gastrointestinal situation calmed down shortly thereafter. The only thing that is really hanging on this damned head congestion, and even that has been pretty well behaved for the past four days: no snot crust in the ’stache, no leaky faucet action in the middle of conversations.

Nope, the only persistent issues have been a speaking voice that is perhaps a bit huskier than usual and an unfortunate reflexive tendency to inhale sharply from time to time to clear the nasal passages. (The latter generally results in a sound akin to that of a grunting hog.)

Oh, and my left ear has been plugged up for 96 hours.

Warms What Chills Ya…

Like so many people out there in the nonvirtual word, I have been sick for about a week now. It all started last Saturday morning when I woke up in Savannah. As is usually the case when I wake up in that town, I had a mild hangover. I promptly hopped in the car and started the long drive back to Our Nation’s Capital. Somewhere deep in to the Carolinas, I noticed that my mild hangover was worsening and soon figured out it was not, in fact, a hangover but something much more flu-like.

I’ll spare you the details of how this mystery illness pretty well laid me out for three days after I finally made it back to DC, thus sparing you all my own contribution to The Streak Continues series which, based on last year’s exploits in Austin, would have consisted of having a hearty breakfast and lunch of 1792 Ridgemont Reserve, getting 86ed from Antone’s before the sound check, and various (alleged) incidents of public indecency and drunken confessions to past bad behaviors.

Instead, I was in bed at 845PM on New Years Eve with a pleasant wreath of generic NyQuil-equivalent wrapped around my head.

Alas, my penchant for generic NyQuil-equivalent is on par with my penchant for bourbon. I stopped at the pharmacy on my way home last night because I was out of generic NyQuil-equivalent. In the interest of turning over a new leaf for a new year, I wound up picking up some TheraFlu Warming Relief. I don’t know if it worked better or worse than my generic NyQuil-equivalent because I generally sleep through most of the part where the active ingredients get active.

What I do know, however, is that one should not mistake TheraFlu Warming Relief with a completely separate product altogether.

You’ve been warmed. Er, warned.