The Old Coot knows why

By Merlin Lessler —

Why is there no cure for the common cold? That miserable, life sucking ailment that lays you low once a year, or so, if you’re lucky. More often, if you are around or have little kids that bring the “gift” home from nursery, or regular school. This is the age-old question, for which the medical science industry stays mute. 

For the answer – all you have to do is take a stroll down the cold medicine aisle in any drug store. It’s a long lane, well packed with pricey, cold remedies. Day pills, night pills, pills to make you cough, pills to stop you from coughing, throat soothers, sinus ache relievers, and an endless list of promised relief. Why would any industry seek to cure what brings in so much cash from the shoppers of this aisle of voodoo. 

So, we cough, we hack, we drip, we ache and we buy the promise of relief that lines the aisle. The most extensive assortment in the store. Here is where I shift into “the good old days.” You are forewarned of the journey that will follow. But, back then, mom got out the Vicks, rubbed it on our chest and neck, brought out the cough syrup (that did, by the way, contain a narcotic) and sent us off to school.

The cold virus burned its way through the classroom, eventually the whole building, and then sputtered out. Teachers weren’t immune, but rarely became infected. Probably because they stayed away from us at their desk or the blackboard at the front of the room, a good ten feet from the first row of hackers and sneezers.

I have to stop here. I’m headed to the drug store to the “aisle” of gloom. You’ve probably figured out; I have a cold. And worse, I passed it along to my wife.

Comments? – Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com.