Why is it whenever you’re hacking. When you have tissue stuffed up your nose. When there are noises emanating from your lungs that sound like tree branches snapping. Like thunder crackling. Like little mice being squeezed. Why is it whenever you’re in this state, people always stare you right in the eyes and ask, “Are you sick?” Oh, no. I’m fine, thank you. I always sound like this. Then I sneeze on their head. Right on their head!
Hack! Hack! Wheez! Wheez! Oh, to be sick
Oh, it sure took me back. All the hacking and wheezing. The cracking coughs that sounded like out-of-balance cement trucks tumbling blocks of granite. The heavy feeling in my chest like somebody was standing on my rib cage. No, like someone had taken up residence in my lungs. Maybe moths. Maybe squirrels. Clogging up my bronchial tubes, fluttering about, making me cough horrible, painful coughs. Good memories of childhood, it was. My daughter has bronchitis, and after two weeks of sounding like Barry White and beginning conversations with, “My darling I … HACK! HACK! WHEEZ! WHEEZ! (pound on chest),” I decided to go see the doctor myself. I hate admitting defeat, and that I can’t cure a cold with OJ and sheer willpower.