Cold Remedies!

Last Friday I came down with the flu. It started with a sore throat, overall achy joints and muscles...then the fever started.

I laid in bed all weekend. I went to work on Monday. By the time I arrived home from work that afternoon, I felt as if I could have slept a whole week straight.

By Tuesday my nose was so plugged that I could only breath through my mouth. The chills had returned and every joint and muscle in my body felt like they'd been stretched beyond their limit. I couldn't smell anything and my taste buds had gone on strike. Have you ever tried to eat when you have no sense of taste? Why bother eating if you can't taste it?

Typically, I"m a big fan of Vick's Vaporub and chicken noodle soup. DH and DS are more into the Nyquil/Dayquil combo for flu/cold symptoms. Call me old-fashioned, but I'll take Vick's over Nyquil any day.

But recently my husband purchased a product called Unkers Cream.

He found it at the local Mennonite market. It claims to cure and ease all your woes, such as colds, coughs, achy joints, achy muscles, rashes, dried and scaly feet, and on and on. Since the makers of the product seem to think it can cure anything and everything, I jokingly called it "snake oil." Remember those old, traveling salesmen of the 1800's that carried a tonic or cream that could cure anything that ails ya? Well, no, I can't remember them either, I'm not THAT old! But anyway, that's what I figured this cream was: a claim (only) of curing anything under the sun and then some.

Unkers cream smells worse than Vick's; it smells worse than Ben Gay; and it smells worse than my son's old, moldy gym socks. But, hey, I didn't have any sense of smell, so what could it hurt? Right?

I slathered a huge dollop onto my upper chest and neck area. I hadn't fully rubbed it in, when suddenly my nose became a faucet and a box of tissues later, I could breath. I could take deep down from the bottom of my diaphragm breaths! Ahhh! But then I could smell that horrible "snake oil." Let me just say, EEEWWWWW!!!

Oh well....one must sacrifice a bit of comfort when one is sick! Right?

As I sit here quietly savoring my chicken noodle soup, I'm wondering where my family had taken flight to the last few days? Hmmmm, I also wonder why no one stopped by my desk at work today to say hello? No one!