(Due to technical difficulties, mine no doubt, this post was supposed to be published before the “Side Note to Adult Colding.” I add it now as it is the beginning to the duo.)
I am just recovering from a head cold that has been with me for almost a week. A week out of my life I’ll never get back. A week spent sneezing, wheezing and generally feeling sorry for myself. I still feel as if I could go back to bed but I’m pushing myself back to normal life. I remember having colds in my twenties and it taking two to three days to recover. Forty years later, it now takes me two to three weeks to get back to my former self. I honestly don’t know when it became the norm for the sniffles to take over my life and put me down for the count, but it must have come on gradually.
When I was very young, having a cold meant having my mom braid my hair, put fresh jammies on me and tuck me in. Being the nurse she was, my temperature was taken, a cooling bath was given and my feet were always kept warm. I felt swaddled in her loving care.
As I grew in age, a cold meant going to bed, getting an Orange Julius (I thought this was the elixir that could cure everything), and a Seventeen Magazine. I was doted on and cared for so much that I sprang back to life in only a few days.
Years went by and I had a child of my own that I doted on and cared for. But, something else happened . . .my colds were ignored and I learned to work through them. A mother has no other choice. My son came first. I would have liked to baby the husband, but he seemed determined to sweat it out by himself, so I left him alone.
Then came the time our home became an empty nest and I was again left to my own devices. Is there nothing sexier than gazing over at the husband and realizing there is a tissue stuffed up your nose to stop the dripping. You have on mismatched jammies, your hair is going 300 different directions and there is a touch of drool dripping from the corner of your mouth. Ah, yes, you are truly magical.
Then comes the disturbing rasp emanating from your chest every time you breathe along with the feeling the top of your head is going to blow off. Every cough sends a new spasm throughout your body and you pee yourself a little. Your voice sounds like you have been smoking for the last 100 years. And the magic just keeps moving on.
I think the most alarming and yet theatrical moment in the cold comes when you are ready to finally take a shower. Enough is enough with being sweaty, gross and unwashed. It’s time to take a hold of your life and clean away the stink. But, as you climb into the steamy shower, something happens and you feel light-headed and slightly nauseous.
I remember one of these occasions quite vividly. It was a week when my son and daughter-in-law were up to visit bringing with them their teacup Chihuahua. (I called her “The Potato” as she was roughly the size of a Costco potato.) They were hoping to train her to use a litter box, so, a pink container filled with cat litter was placed in my bathroom as it was the most central place for her to remember.
This sounded all well and good but what no one took into account was the mess that little spud was going to cause. Oh, she entered the box with no problem but exiting was another matter. Those tiny pieces of litter were strewn far and wide and she left a trail of them that wound down the hallway. That was going to play a vital role in what happened next.
Not feeling well but determined to go to work anyway. I turned on the faucet and entered the hot, steamy atmosphere. In only a few minutes I realized this was not a good idea but by then I was already soaped up with a head full of shampoo. I began to get dizzy and sick to my stomach but had the presence of mind to know I had to get out of there. So, in one fluid move I not only stepped out of the shower but fell to the floor. I remember my shoulder hitting the bath mat but nothing else for what seemed forever and in reality was only a few seconds. I came to completely laid out on the floor and feeling a bit scratchy. Scratchy, you ask? Yes, because not only was I wet and soapy but I had rolled in the cat litter the Potato left only seconds after I stepped in the shower.
I basically felt like a chicken breast that had been dipped in batter and rolled in crumbs. Cat litter “jimmies” covered me. Yes, I was a “breaded” filet. My only option was to get back in the hot, steamy shower. I sat up to check the level of my dizziness. Not too bad. I got up on my knees and checked again. Obviously the cool of the room had helped and the nausea had subsided.
I stood, reached in and in a moment of brilliance turned the temperature from hot to cool. I then proceeded to “unbread” myself. Soap, shampoo and jimmies cascaded down my body and into the tub. Thank goodness the drain accepted it all and didn’t clog because one more glitch in my day would have sent me back to bed. As it was I had to clean up the floor with about six towels and put them in the washing machine on soak.
Soon I was rid of all the goo and particles that seemed to have adhered to me and I was clean and steady. Interestingly enough, I made it to work exactly on time.
Moral of the story — if ever you find yourself in a shower with a cat box just outside the tub, turn the water temperature way down. That way you will not find yourself on the floor rolled, breaded and ready to be sautéed.
magicalmess 