I’m on day six of a cold. It feels like week six of a cold. Having been a teacher for 38 years (God, that’s a long fucking time) I’m well used to having colds and going about my daily business, including teaching, while in the throes. Colds are like depressions in the sense that when you’re absorbed in teaching you can forget about them. Oh sure occasionally you have to stop and sneeze or blow your honker or cough into your sleeve but those are momentary distractions. As long as the cold doesn’t make your throat too raspy you can carry on. Then you get home and collapse on the sofa. Cold naps can be pretty deep. Waking from them you get this odd feeling of being refreshed and especially groggy (I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me either, but there it is).
One of the features of the cold is coughing up phlegm. For me this happens more towards the end of the cold. It’s not so bad if you’re outside because you can spit it out right away. But being a good citizen I send it in a direction that is not going to be especially visible. No one wants to see your gob. Of course if you’re in teaching you have to discreetly spit your gob into a tissue. (Has this been detailed enough for you? Found it interesting?) Your throat and sinuses feel cleaned out after a good gob of phlegm is ejected. Kind of like how your nose can feel after a particularly satisfying blow. But then the snot comes back. Where the hell does it come from?
Speaking of questions….Couldn’t we have come up with a better name for a cold? For one thing the word is already in use to describe the opposite of hot. (Pause while the writer does a bit of a google to seek an alternative name.)
I googled scrump but it’s a word that can be used to describe something that is “shriveled or cooked to a crisp.” Next I tried snorf but it means “to force air through the nose with a harsh sound, or to express anger, scorn, or surprise.” The whole point is to invent a word so that the condition of having a sore throat, sniffles and a low grade fever has it’s own name. Next I tried blunk but in Scottish dialect it means to “ruin, mismanage, or spoil.” (Clearly this is more difficult than I thought.)
Porbel is the name of a company. Gluch is a village in Poland. Skozzer is some sort of game. Blump describes something really boring. (Like this blog post?)
Success at last! Carnfaffle! We can say: I had a terrible carnfaffle last week. Or, Bob is coming down with a carnfaffle. Or, starve a carnfaffle, feed a fever. Or, will they ever develop a cure for the common carnfaffle?
So there you go ladies and gentlemen I hereby declare that colds will henceforth be referred to as carnfaffles. The Oxford University Press recently proclaimed “brain rot” as the word of the year (I call bullshit, brain rot is TWO words). Fair enough. But you’ve already got your word for 2025: carnfaffle.
Moving on…..
I just stepped out to get the morning paper. There are few people about at this hour (it’s about ten of seven) so it’s rare that I encounter anyone when stepping out for the paper or to move the bins on trash and replying and compost pick up day. But a chap walked right by this AM. I’m not ready for people so early in the day but especially not this bloke. He was a young skinny fellow with a handlebar mustache. I need to have been up for at least a couple of hours before seeing anyone with a handlebar mustache. It’s simply too much to take in early in the day. If I — heaven forbid — ever decided to sport this type of facial hair, I’d avoid mirrors until mid day. Maybe all day. But to each their own I say. (Come to think of it, don’t all but the most virulent bigots say, to each their own? Oh I suppose most say to each his own but I’m into the whole feminist and gender fluidity stuff.)
At the outset I believe (why doesn’t he go back and check?) I noted that the cold — sorry, the carnfaffle — that has been bugging me is in abeyance. The nice thing about getting over a minor illness is how damn good it feels to be normal again. You practically feel better for having had a week or so of sniffles and hacking cough. Of course that's not the case with the flu or something else more serious when there can be a longer recovery time and the rebuilding of strength. But with a carnfaffle (nee cold) I get back to a hundred per cent pretty quickly.
Okay so I wrote all of the preceding yesterday and the day before (I’ve been busy with other things, ya know). The carnfaffle is all but gone now. I’ll be blowing my nose several times through the course of the day but my throat is just fine, thank you, and the achiness and whatnot are gone. I hated the whatnot. I’d go to the gym today but I have a haircut scheduled for right after work and a basketball game to go to tonight Tomorrow the gym. Recovered.
Be careful y’all it’s carnfaffle and flu season.
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