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plural101 Ways To Pass The Time When You Have A Cold
[That whole "praying for death" thing is implied.]
Stand in front of the bathroom mirror and perform the voice-over for a Discovery Channel documentary on spelunking. "While stalactites often take millennia to form, this fine specimen -- composed entirely of snot -- formed in a matter of hours and now descends in majestic grandeur from the nose ring in the left nostril."
Drink tea.
Blow your nose.
Buy a bag of Halls mentholated cough drops.
Run out of Kleenex late at night. Use toilet paper instead until you start to worry about running out of toilet paper; switch to paper towels.
Run out of paper towels; switch to notebook paper.
Run out of notebook paper; switch to Post-It notes.
Run out of Post-Its; switch to sleeves.
Run out of shirts; switch to lampshades.
Sneeze.
Short out power; switch to cats.
Scare cats; switch to cooked lasagna noodles.
Run out of pasta. Put on your shoes, schlep to the corner deli, and pay way too much for more Kleenex because the deli is the only place open.
Open a new box in the elevator because you have begun to drip.
Sigh at the pathos of the common cold.
Suck on a Halls mentholated cough drop for eleven seconds; spit out the Halls mentholated cough drop and wonder aloud why you never remember how much you hate Halls mentholated cough drops.
Chuck the rest of the bag of Halls mentholated cough drops into the trash.
Buy a box of Luden's.
Eat the entire box of Luden's in an hour. Wonder aloud why you never remember that Luden's is basically just candy and doesn't work.
Buy a sleeve of Velamints.
Blow your nose.
Install a defroster on your glasses so that you can read and drink your eighteenth cup of tea at the same time.
Reread Gogol's The Nose.
Discover that, by inhaling rapidly through your nose, you can imitate the sound of an engine revving. Lean over the cats and rev your sinuses repeatedly until they wake up from their naps, get annoyed, and slink off.
Suck on a Velamint for eleven seconds; spit out the Velamint and wonder aloud why you never remember that Velamints taste like the malevolent spawn of purse lint and Kaopectate.
Chuck the rest of the sleeve of Velamints into the trash. Tell the sleeve of Velamints -- which has not plummeted satisfyingly to the bottom of the trash can but instead sits cheekily at the top, buoyed by approximately seventeen thousand used Kleenex and refusing to get out of your sight in the name of all that is holy -- that its existence is an insult to all other mints, and that you can't speak for other consumers, but you personally feel that the use of the prefix "vela-" in its name to imply some sort of flight demeans not only the act of flying but the intelligence of the mint-eating public, because only in an Orwellian nightmare could the experience of eating a Velamint possibly compare to soaring among the clouds, and lastly, while you don't generally feel comfortable using the term "abortion" to refer to food items given your proven fondness for bologna sandwiches, you will most certainly make an exception in the case of the chocolate Velamint, which, if food had a circus, would belong in the gallery of freaks alongside Koogle and pork rinds.
Feel a sudden wave of depression wash over you because you have spent the last fifteen minutes snarling into your trash can at a sleeve of Velamints.
Drink tea.
Blow your nose.
Get knocked down by another wave of depression because you didn't even get the cold from kissing.
Think about how you did get the cold. Think about all the random, anonymous, possibly-germ-laden surfaces you have touched in the last few days. Think about how the virus probably sat quietly on a table at a coffee shop or on a door handle, waiting for its chance, and lodged its tiny self deep in one of your fingerprints, knowing that you would eventually rub your face and that from anywhere on your face it's just a short whistling-Dixie stroll to your mucus membranes.
Struggle not to give in to the Howard-Hughesian "germs EVERYWHERE!" panic attack you can feel coming on.
Suffer a Howard-Hughesian "germs EVERYWHERE!" panic attack.
Blow your nose.
Spend several minutes trying to replicate the amusing "huuhhh-OOOONNNK" noise you just generated somehow while blowing your nose.
"Faaahhhhhhhnk." No, not quite...
"Bbbbllllllssshhh." Dammit.
[That whole "praying for death" thing is implied.]
Stand in front of the bathroom mirror and perform the voice-over for a Discovery Channel documentary on spelunking. "While stalactites often take millennia to form, this fine specimen -- composed entirely of snot -- formed in a matter of hours and now descends in majestic grandeur from the nose ring in the left nostril."
Drink tea.
Blow your nose.
Buy a bag of Halls mentholated cough drops.
Run out of Kleenex late at night. Use toilet paper instead until you start to worry about running out of toilet paper; switch to paper towels.
Run out of paper towels; switch to notebook paper.
Run out of notebook paper; switch to Post-It notes.
Run out of Post-Its; switch to sleeves.
Run out of shirts; switch to lampshades.
Sneeze.
Short out power; switch to cats.
Scare cats; switch to cooked lasagna noodles.
Run out of pasta. Put on your shoes, schlep to the corner deli, and pay way too much for more Kleenex because the deli is the only place open.
Open a new box in the elevator because you have begun to drip.
Sigh at the pathos of the common cold.
Suck on a Halls mentholated cough drop for eleven seconds; spit out the Halls mentholated cough drop and wonder aloud why you never remember how much you hate Halls mentholated cough drops.
Chuck the rest of the bag of Halls mentholated cough drops into the trash.
Buy a box of Luden's.
Eat the entire box of Luden's in an hour. Wonder aloud why you never remember that Luden's is basically just candy and doesn't work.
Buy a sleeve of Velamints.
Blow your nose.
Install a defroster on your glasses so that you can read and drink your eighteenth cup of tea at the same time.
Reread Gogol's The Nose.
Discover that, by inhaling rapidly through your nose, you can imitate the sound of an engine revving. Lean over the cats and rev your sinuses repeatedly until they wake up from their naps, get annoyed, and slink off.
Suck on a Velamint for eleven seconds; spit out the Velamint and wonder aloud why you never remember that Velamints taste like the malevolent spawn of purse lint and Kaopectate.
Chuck the rest of the sleeve of Velamints into the trash. Tell the sleeve of Velamints -- which has not plummeted satisfyingly to the bottom of the trash can but instead sits cheekily at the top, buoyed by approximately seventeen thousand used Kleenex and refusing to get out of your sight in the name of all that is holy -- that its existence is an insult to all other mints, and that you can't speak for other consumers, but you personally feel that the use of the prefix "vela-" in its name to imply some sort of flight demeans not only the act of flying but the intelligence of the mint-eating public, because only in an Orwellian nightmare could the experience of eating a Velamint possibly compare to soaring among the clouds, and lastly, while you don't generally feel comfortable using the term "abortion" to refer to food items given your proven fondness for bologna sandwiches, you will most certainly make an exception in the case of the chocolate Velamint, which, if food had a circus, would belong in the gallery of freaks alongside Koogle and pork rinds.
Feel a sudden wave of depression wash over you because you have spent the last fifteen minutes snarling into your trash can at a sleeve of Velamints.
Drink tea.
Blow your nose.
Get knocked down by another wave of depression because you didn't even get the cold from kissing.
Think about how you did get the cold. Think about all the random, anonymous, possibly-germ-laden surfaces you have touched in the last few days. Think about how the virus probably sat quietly on a table at a coffee shop or on a door handle, waiting for its chance, and lodged its tiny self deep in one of your fingerprints, knowing that you would eventually rub your face and that from anywhere on your face it's just a short whistling-Dixie stroll to your mucus membranes.
Struggle not to give in to the Howard-Hughesian "germs EVERYWHERE!" panic attack you can feel coming on.
Suffer a Howard-Hughesian "germs EVERYWHERE!" panic attack.
Blow your nose.
Spend several minutes trying to replicate the amusing "huuhhh-OOOONNNK" noise you just generated somehow while blowing your nose.
"Faaahhhhhhhnk." No, not quite...
"Bbbbllllllssshhh." Dammit.
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On an unrelated note
Date: 2002-10-30 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-30 04:46 pm (UTC)If you didn't know.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-30 06:42 pm (UTC)fabulous
I will check it out
thanks much for the tip