Skip this post if you don't like whining.

I'm sick. Sick sick sick. My throat feels like coarse-grit sandpaper, my lips are cracked in a dozen places, and the crumpled balls of Kleenex around all the bedroom wastepaper basket contain fluid of a striking shade that I call Michelle Williams' Oscar Gown.

I've avoided writing about this for three days because, let's face, it, there is nothing more tedious than a blogger writing about her cold. Especially when there are emaciated celebrities to skewer. But you know what? I'm sick which means I'm the princess and I get to do whatever I want. So poop on you.

Our medicine cabinet is a fun place to explore since we will try anything once and never throw it away. Why we have two unopened tins of Tiger Balm I will never know. My only recollection of how you use that stuff is that in tenth grade, my best friend Rachel and I would get stoned, apply the Tiger Balm to our temples, and go, Coooool...it feels like there's a bullet going through my head! Or something like that.

I won't go through our entire pharmaceutical inventory, but let's just say if you're ever at my place after a run-in with some bad sushi, we've got you covered nine different ways.

Admittedly Nate and I are CVS junkies. I can't send him to the store for Advil without him toting home four other pain relievers, our sixth toenail clipper, two different kinds of cotton balls, and some Cool Ranch Doritos. He's especially assured of bringing home any product with a box that proclaims NEW! Especially if it's got some fancy proprietary technology with a catchy name like time-release or liquigel or flavor crystals. So when I sent him to the store for more Dayquil, I shouldn't have been surprised that he also came home with Zicam Cold and Flu Daytime with NEW! SPOON DOSING! written on the box in bright red letters, so the rubes like us can't miss it.

I love Zicam. It's a zinc spray you shove up your nose and it really does work, but this stuff is different. It's essentially this goopy liquid in prepackaged little spoons, which I can only imagine is for those people too sick to get up and actually pour medicine into the spoon by themselves. Then again, you do have to be well enough to make some tea or soup to stir the stuff into, and then go ahead and drink the whole thing without getting distracted by Bob Barker explaining the next item up for bid. I was not this well. Nor this motivated. So I licked the medicine right off the spoon.

Bad idea. Very bad idea.

I have never in fact licked a dog's ass but if I did, I could pretty much assure you that it would taste better than this stuff.

What's worse, it did not, as promised, provide powerful relief of my sore throat or nasal congestion or runny nose. What it did do is knock me on my ass for two hours when I had work to do. Which begs the question, what is it about this medicine that makes it "daytime" instead of "nighttime?" Less profanity on the packaging?

(Okay, here I think to myself, I have just insured that I will never be approached to pitch the Zicam account. But wait! I could do great ads for it! Zicam Cold and Flu Daytime Formula: Tastes worse than a dog's ass so you know it's working. Or Zicam Cold and Flu Daytime Formula: If you're really that sick you wouldn't be able to taste it anyway, Miss Smartypants.)

But hey, I'm a silver lining kind of gal. I will say there has been one upside to feeling like one of those cartoon pianos fell on my head--it kept me home with my baby, allowing me the great pleasure of witnessing the following:



Not the Gene Simmons impression, the fact that she's standing. My little girl is standing! Maybe it is time to go ahead and lock up that medicine chest after all.