Good morning, Netizens...

 

After nearly four days and counting, I have finally crawled from bed after suffering a bad bout with a cold, complete with all the dandy side-effects that typically accompany such things. When I was much younger, I used to catch one of these infections perhaps once a year. I vaguely remember an otherwise profitable weekend in a Wyoming truck stop once, spending what seemed like a week in the sleeper of my truck, with an occasional visit to a nearby clinic, and eating my few meals in the restaurant lined with cheap pine paneling and greasy food. Of course then, I was much younger, and better-equipped to fend off what passed for walking pneumonia, much less poor interior decor.

 

Today I can only thank my wife for what I have come to view as her “sure-fire” old-fashioned cure: hot pekoe tea with honey, which seems to have done a better job of eliminating this scourge from my aging fat-body than all the professional pharmaceuticals I've ingested combined. I had a regular military row of bottles of medications that I tried, some prescription, some not, but each with diminishing results. Until I finally began her regimen of tea and honey, I had been missing a lot of sleep, not eating well (which for me is truly an anomaly) and in general hacking up indescribably ugly bits of human biochemistry, and I was beginning to worry I might need to go see the sawbones for a cure.

 

It seems that nearly everyone in my family has had a bout of this malignancy, beginning with my grandchildren, who brought it home to our house from school. I'll leave it to others to determine whether this is a classic case of the younger generation educating the old.

 

But as of this morning, I am almost back on schedule, and although I still am hacking like a bullfrog looking for a hot date, at least I can see straight now, the wretched fever seems to have departed and suddenly now I am hungry. The latter is, of course, a positive sign. Damn! I hate it when good signs collide with bad outcomes. It makes one wonder why we try.

 

So, onward into the new day.

 

Dave

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