COLUMN: Grateful ungrateful, from colds to COVID

About eight or nine years ago, I wrote two columns within 12 months about the “man cold”. It wasn’t on purpose to be honest. It wasn’t that Column One was so good that Column Two: Electric Boogaloo got an instant green light.

In fact, I had completely forgotten about the first by the time I wrote the second, which may indicate that I was more under the weather writing these two columns than I cared to admit.

What jolted my memory was what happened in the days before I completed the trilogy and wrote a third column on the male pattern disease. It’s been deleted from the internet and the company I wrote it for barely exists anymore, so I’ll borrow a few lines to get us going here, with some notes for 2022:

“There’s a new dead cold commercial,” said a colleague. “You won’t be offended if we play it, will you?”

This refers to the Vick’s commercials that seem to find their way back onto our TVs every cold and flu season.

“Of course not,” I replied. I was offended, of course, but I didn’t budge. I think I was more concerned that my column hadn’t been read by the other people in the office.

This is not entirely correct. I was aware that practically nobody read my columns, but I was young enough that I could be self-indulgent enough to write them weekly anyway.

Those who have read the columns may recall that I wasn’t put off by a commercial depicting the “man cold” but rather by the idea that there are men out there making little babies wheeze at the first sniffle or sneeze will.

That is still perfectly true. When pressed by my partner that, in her experience, this cliché was entirely correct and justified, I said three words to her that I have never said before or since: “not all men” (because generally, “yes, all men ’ is the appropriate answer in almost all cases).

However, this weekend I discovered that I might have a penchant for a certain brand of man-coldness that hasn’t been co-opted by marketers far and wide. The reason for this is simple: the young man crying for his mother is a much more likeable creative than the ungrateful bastard who just wants to have a hot toddy and go to sleep.

This weekend I became this ungrateful bastard.

A lot has changed since 2014. New careers, new relationships, new homes. What hasn’t changed is that I’m at my worst when I’m sick, which was reconfirmed to me earlier this month. Helping the Kleenex company make their quarters made me realize I was the same ungrateful bastard as I was in 2014 and at least once a year between then and 2020.

To be honest, I never want to admit how sick I actually am. Maybe it’s misplaced machismo, the “don’t cry unless you’re hurt” mentality that many of us grew up with. Perhaps it is the desire to defend oneself against what seems to be such a strong cliché. Maybe – to quote from the last column again – it’s because we’re all stubborn, stupid and stuck (yes, all men)

And God forbid if it gets in the way of your plans. Take the January 2018 cold as an example, which caused more snot and phlegm to come out of my system than was previously thought humanly possible. Did I go to work every day? Of course. Did I happen to be at a concert in Barrie? Absolutely. Did I take a day trip to Buffalo to get Sonic and American Pizza Kits? 100 percent. Have I worn a mask at any point? Hard no.

Thanksgiving weekend 2022? I felt guilty leaving my living room.

Because in a post-COVID-19 world, it’s difficult to ignore a runny nose or a fit of coughing, especially in the middle of a crowded room — if you can even walk into a crowded room in good conscience. And when I say post-COVID-19 world, by how the world has changed since the pandemic began, I don’t mean that the pandemic is over, as so many of us really desperately want.

I’ve never been one of the “pandemic is over” people, and I usually save a comment like that for a sarcastic retort. That belief was underscored for me the morning I tested positive, ending my two-and-a-half-year streak of safety, sanitization, and perhaps a degree of complacency.

The irony in a way is that on the two days I showed symptoms with a negative test, the day I tested positive was the most comfortable day of the weekend at that point. I wish I could have smelled the lit three-wick Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin, but at least I could still taste the Evan Williams.

I was lucky. My symptoms subsided quickly and regular testing showed a rapid decrease in the thickness of the positive line, returning to normal within a week of testing negative.

Others weren’t so lucky, and so I will never call my case mild. I don’t think there is anything mild about a virus that can affect literally anyone with such ferocity and variability.

I also have no doubt that being vigilant about vaccinations has made this a better experience for me. If I hadn’t been vaccinated and hadn’t followed the advice of medical professionals and reputable scientists, it could have been a lot worse.

And in the hope that it doesn’t happen again, I will continue to be as cautious as I have been in public. Because as annoying as it was to be straddled with moderate discomfort, being strapped to a hospital bed was definitely better.

Even an ungrateful bastard can call that a win.