I must begin with the disclaimer that it’s not the COVID. Shoved a gritty cotton swab up my nose to know for sure, and so this newsletter is being written from a place of extremely good fortune. But I forgot (somehow, entirely forgot), just how not at all fun getting a cold is.
And so I am going to whine about it. Here’s why it sucks to be me right now.
1: DOOM JUICE
DayQuil is miraculously nasty stuff. It’s antifreeze orange and smells like danger. One little plastic shot glass of it makes me vibrate with an unholy artificial-ADHD energy. I do not like it, but it makes me feel a form of unwell that is slightly better than the form of unwell I was feeling before.
2: SNOTTINGS
In like an hour, I used an entire box of Kleenex. MacGuyver style, I then designated a roll of toilet paper for my snottings (new word alert). This downgrade in product gave me mild case of the sads because it just looks so pathetic and trashy: a roll of toilet paper sitting there on the nightstand.
3: BLAH
No foods sound appealing. My mouth feels unclean and my voice is off. Nothing will taste as it should until my sinuses are happy. Everything is beige-flavored except DayQuil. I have no desire to do much of anything at all. My lust for life has left the building.
4: HERMIT TIME
I can’t go anywhere because coughing, sniffling, and being an obvious carrier of filthy snot-disease is frowned upon nowadays. Two years ago, I would have been all, “Tis but a flesh wound,” about this and gone out and about, casually infecting the countryside. I’m no longer such an inconsiderate savage.
5: MOUTH SCHMEAR
My lips are chapped and the only Chapstick I found was a purple, “tropical” one. Imagine if virgin pina coladas and gas station toilet air fresheners spawned. It smells like that, with jazz hands. I thankfully cannot taste it. That is now a designated “sicko stick” and will be thrown out as soon as this cold is defeated. Not sure how long a virus can be preserved in the amber of tropical-nightmare petroleum, but I am not going to be the person who gives myself my own cold in a few weeks via contaminated lip balm.
6: CIRCLE OF LIFE
The dog will blissfully devour my snotty toilet paper if I am not careful. She intensely craves it. The previous two sentences horrify me deeply.
7: THIRST
I drink so much water and yet—I am still very, very thirsty. I convert fresh, clean water into snot with exhausting inefficiency. The constantly decaying and regenerating human body is a disgusting miracle.
8: RESTING BITCH BODY
I am trying to turn phone calls into emails so I don’t have to explain why I sound like I have a cold. Why do I sound like I have a cold? It’s because I have a cold. Not COVID. I checked. Jesus. I am self-aware enough to know that I am kind of a dick when unwell and must minimize human interactions. It is best that I manufacture all this snot in isolation.
9: CABOT COVE
Tea is converted into snot faster than cold water. Holding a warm cup in my cold hands feels comforting, but I also feel like there are murders I should be solving in my cozy, coastal village whenever I sip tea. Tea is, after all, the drink of choice for snot machines, ladies who collect crystals, and elderly crime fighters. I kind of hate the stuff, but like the DayQuil, it makes me feel a better form of unwell.
10: SEGGSY
The stupid toilet paper is violently abrading my delicate nostril skin. It burns and I hate it. You know what else is making me uncomfortable? My pile of snottings I am keeping in a bag in my lap so the dog doesn’t gorge herself on them. I am a goddess. Truly.
Thus concludes my whining. I will be better next week. I promise.