New tips for cold & flu season

Cold and flu season started the day that schools opened. Even with a flu shot under your belt (or in your arm, I guess) you can still fall victim to fevers, sniffles, and sneezes. Our family was hit this week with the snotpocolypse. Seriously, I didn't even know there could be so much snot. Ears, nose, throat all got a nice laquer of mucus. It was as unavoidable as it was untreatable. We washed down our sudafed with plenty of water, washed our hands, and went to bed early, and still the snot ran. Even when it finally started to clear up, it got a little reboot and I'm back to living on Dayquil. And if this twice damned cold ever does go away, I know it's just going to come back again when the students return from Thanksgiving break! Oh the futility of it all. So I've come up with NEW tips for dealing with your own impending doom.

• Ignore it and maybe it'll go away - Colds are like bullies, right? If you just ignore it, pretend you're not getting sick at all, maybe do something no sane sick person would do like spend all afternoon out in the cold rain, then the cold has no choice but to give up and go away, right?

• Burn it out with booze - Throat is tickling? Don't reach for the orange juice unless you're also reaching for the vodka to go with it. We use alcohol-based products to clean germs off our hands, right? So why not just wash all those germs from your sore throat with a good swig of whiskey? It's so obvious!

• Sleep through it - If I have an extra sick day saved up I'll send my kids along to school, pop a sleep aid and snooze allllllll day. Even if it doesn't cure the cold it certainly is nice to have an excuse to stay in bed all day. Only it doesn't work at all if you get sick on the weekend. Getting sick on the weekend is of the devil.

• Misery loves company - When you've been blessed by the magic touch of the Snot Fairy, don't be selfish, spread the joy to friends and family! Give them the gift of a big slobbery kiss and the next thing you know you'll have a buddy sitting next to you on the sofa sipping their own vodka cranberry, watching reruns of Duck Dynasty, and constructing their own pyramid of used tissues right along with you.

Now please excuse me, I have to go refill my screwdriver and get more tissues before this commercial break is over. Stay healthy, folks!