Column: It is too late for Grandma’s cold maybe it’s the flu remedy

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Her lips were like fire.

She trembled in my arms as she breathed heavily.

There’s no doubt about it, my wife has caught whatever it is that I have. It’s definitely a case of the miseries.

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Achoo diem.

Sneeze the day.

I’m soaking a tea bag in my honor.

I ate a cookie and felt crumby.

I have been inducted into the Order of the Shining Sleeve.

I must have made that terrible mistake of saying, &8220;I can’t remember the last time I had a cold.&8221; Now I remember.

It hurts to even think about thinking. I feel as though I’m a week past my &8220;best used by&8221; date. My head feels like a well-used pi+-ata.

I pass a mirror.

Against my better judgment, I take a peek.

I look almost life-like. It’s scary when I begin to look like the photo on my driver’s license. I’m a one-man slum.

I feel as though I have been smitten with Hjelmer’s Revenge. This malaise affects those who have eaten too much lutefisk.

My head feels like it’s the size of a blue ribbon hog.

My breath could bend a wrench. I’m half-man, half-nose.

My nose runs like it is in training for the Olympics. My beak develops that attractive red diaper rash look after too many encounters with facial tissue. My nose has become Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’s. I blow my nose so often that I begin to appreciate the fact that my nose is in the middle of my face as it offers both convenience and accessibility.

I’m feeling no-account. My ears, nose and throat are all stopped up, while my watery eyes won’t stop running.

I’m feeling a little achy.

It’s not as bad as when I hear Billy Ray Cyrus sing, &8220;Achy Breaky Heart,&8221; but it’s still bad. My aches have pains and my pains ache.

I need my weeds pulled.

I have a cold. Sore throat, cough, raspy voice, fever &045; maybe it’s the flu.

I’m allergic to colds and flus.

Minnesota has four seasons &045; summer, winter, cold, and flu.

I combat a cold and the flu the same way &045; I whine about them incessantly.

Whimpering is a time-tested method of dealing with such maladies.

I washed my hands often, I took vitamin C, I wore a hat, I gobbled zinc tablets, I didn’t rub my eyes, and I didn’t pick my nose. I did all of those things and what did I get for my efforts? You guessed it. A cold or maybe the flu.

The good news is that my fever should cut down our heat bill.

I feel so lousy, I could eat my own cooking.

I haven’t felt so terrible since the last time I had the cold or flu.

Ginger ale tastes good. It only tastes good when I have a cold or the flu.

I feel like Methuselah’s uncle.

There’s nothing like being sick to make you feel simultaneously five years old and 105 years old.

In an attack of hacking, wheezing, snorting, sweating and shivering, the 105-year-old me croaks, “I’m dying.”

The 5-year-old me whimpers, “Mommy.”

When I was a boy, the cold or flu had a silver lining. It meant a day of lounging and a day bereft of school. A day of goldbricking that was excused by a believable note penned and signed by my mother.

I moan.

I groan. My current wife says that I am prone to exaggeration when my body is taken over by an alien.

Methinks she exaggerates my exaggerations. Every man knows that any cold he might have is far worse than any cold a woman might contract. My current wife says that’s because we deserve it.

I try to develop a resistance to colds and flus. The French Resistance was a good one, but it’s very difficult to get the French to do anything today.

You can’t cure a cold. All you can do is to make everyone around you as miserable as you are.

Oh, there are over-the-counter-remedies for colds that I could try. They all work about the same. If you take them as directed, you will feel better in about a week. You could also try spray-painting your body purple, wrapping yourself in aluminum foil and sitting in the attic eating fondue while singing the theme song to Gilligan’s Island. If you do this, you should feel better in about seven days.

My Grandma gave me a tip.

She said that if I went barefoot, I’d never catch a cold or the flu.

Grandma might have been right, but it’s too late for me.

Save yourself. Ditch those shoes.

(Hartland resident Al Batt writes a column for the Tribune each Wednesday and Sunday.)