My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places

Congested and Confused

When I was young, a nose had few choices when it came to cold remedies. There were the capsules filled with cupcake sprinkles, and there was the antifreeze-looking stuff with its own little medicine cup. There was also that nasal spray bottle that breathed in and out in the TV ads, but frankly, this was unnerving. It was like having a tiny obscene phone caller living in your medicine cabinet.

It’s not so simple anymore. Today’s cold sufferer must confront The Wall of Cold Remedies. There are pills for people with stuffy noses and pills for people with nasal congestion, who are, I suspect, simply people with stuffy noses and advanced degrees, or, otherwise put, stuffy people with stuffy noses. Perhaps because I don’t have an advanced degree, I don’t understand some things. For example, the difference between sinus congestion and nasal congestion. Fortunately, there are helpful anatomical drawings on the boxes. These tell us that the sinuses are the sink drain located over the upper nose, whereas the nasal passages are the dripping faucet down below.

Possibly a cheaper and faster remedy would be to have Ed, my husband, use a plunger on me. The facial suction marks would be a source of embarrassment, but no worse than the embarrassment endured by the guy on the 24-Hour box with the clock installed on his head. Every day at noon he has to pry the hour hand out of his eye socket. No doubt there’s a special pill for that too.

I’m not a fan of what the drug companies call “cocktail” remedies: a single pill that treats nasal congestion, cough, headache, fever, sore throat, loose shingles, rising interest rates, pushy salesmen, cracked O-rings, and a dozen other things you don’t actually have. Especially puzzling is the combination of a cough suppressant and expectorant. Why would you seek to “loosen chest congestion,” readying it for travel, and at the same time shut down the launching mechanism?

Seeking the gentle simplicity of yesteryear, I reached for the bottle of NyQuil with its adorable medicine cup hat. Then I stopped. There’s a DayQuil now too. Soon there would be a Dusk-quil, and a Daylight-Savings-quil, and a Darkest-Hour-Just-Before-the-Dawn-quil. Then my gaze strayed two shelves down, to something entirely new and possibly fabulous: Breathe Right vapor nasal strips. These are a variation of the nose strips you see football players wearing. Instead of simply trying to unclog the mess inside your nostrils, the Breathe Right strip holds them open wider, so there’s room for everything: congestion, airflow, toilet plunger, movie tickets. Plus, you enjoy the unique motivational pick-me-up of feeling like a linebacker. Rather than lying around the house moaning for soup, you find yourself up and about, grunting and shoving. People laugh at your shiny nylon trousers and you hurl them to the ground! You dislocate their bones, and when you’re done, an NFL pension awaits. Way to feel better!

There is one more thing to keep in mind (that’s the area above and to the rear of the sink drain). If you take a pill that cures all your cold symptoms, no one will know you are sick. No one will pity you or let you out of your chores or tell you to take the rest of the afternoon off and read junky magazines in bed. There should be a pill that, while easing your overall distress, leaves intact one or two of the showier symptoms, the sympathy-getters. Whoever comes up with this pill will become very rich, so rich he can afford his own mansion, and another for his mother, and one for the heavy breather in his medicine cabinet.